Saturn's geyser-spewing moon Enceladus
Frozen iceball or hidden ocean? NASA's Cassini spacecraft has renewed debate among planetary scientists over Saturn's geyser-spewing mystery moon, Enceladus. [..] Spinning the spacecraft around as it passed overhead to shoot the images, Cassini captured the "tiger stripe" fissures on the moon, from which geysers were first spotted in 2005.
Ref. Source 4
I think it would be interesting to see if this is a iced over moon that hold a ocean of fresh water underneath it. Finding a place to land safely on this moon and exploring the possibility of getting under the ice layer to harvest a possible ocean is stuff that scientist can dream of. Think of the possibilities of inter planetary travel that includes a stop off at saturn to get fresh water from its moon. Or even intergalatic travel that should not be far off after we get to moving about in our solar system.
An ocean lies a few kilometers beneath Saturn's moon Enceladus's icy surface
With eruptions of ice and water vapor, and an ocean covered by an ice shell, Saturn's moon Enceladus is one of the most fascinating in the Solar System, especially as interpretations of data provided by the Cassini spacecraft have been contradictory until now. Astronomers recently proposed a new model that reconciles different data sets and shows that the ice shell at Enceladus's south pole may be only a few kilometers thick. This suggests that there is a strong heat source in the interior of Enceladus, an additional factor supporting the possible emergence of life in its ocean. Ref. Source 7n.
Nearly all the elements needed for life found on Saturn's moon
Scientists have found a potential new food source for life on Saturn's moon Enceladus, according to a new study published in the journal "Science." The researchers emphasized they did not find evidence of life itself. What they did find was hydrogen gas in the geyser-like plumes spurting from the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus. On Earth, hydrogen from seafloor hot springs, also known as hydrothermal vents, serves as a food stock for microbes and as the base of an elaborate ecosystem. With the new discovery, nearly every item on the list of supplies essential to life has now been found on Enceladus. Ref. USAToday.
The best part of this is that we didn't even have to invent warp technology to find life (Or the possibility of life) on other planets. Now, all we need to do is explore our oceans more.
Surprise methanol detection points to evolving story of Saturn's moon Enceladus's plumes. A serendipitous detection of the organic molecule methanol around an intriguing moon of Saturn suggests that material spewed from Enceladus undertakes a complex chemical journey once vented into space. This is the first time that a molecule from Enceladus has been detected with a ground-based telescope. Source 6g.
Scientists find evidence of complex organic molecules from Enceladus. Using mass spectrometry data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, scientists found that large, carbon-rich organic molecules are ejected from cracks in the icy surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus. Scientists think chemical reactions between the moon's rocky core and warm water from its subsurface ocean are linked to these complex molecules. Source 3x.