Signs of water on one of Saturn's moons

[Bill Thompson]

It looks like me after a long day and I put my forehead down on my desk.

[Dragon Star]

New evidence for "Cold Faithful"?

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=4802

Interesting read. I would quote it, but you really have to read it all to get it.

[Blue Fire]

Or Frigid Faithful, as the article briefly mentions.

[sunofsky]

the news is very interesting though, about water found on that moon. previously that moon may be a cluster of ice, later melting resulted into water flowing.

in short we can say "whether there is water in the universe life is there".

[dmill1220]

Hi Folks,
I find this Puzzling that no Oxygen has been detected?
You cannot make water without oxygen!
To my knowledge its 2 parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, so if its water that they see what happened to all of the oxygen?
even if its locked in the water their should still be some Oxygen Around that made the water in the first place, or am I way off track here?
Dennis

[Blue Fire]

Originally Posted by dmill1220

Hi Folks,
I find this Puzzling that no Oxygen has been detected?
You cannot make water without oxygen!
To my knowledge its 2 parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, so if its water that they see what happened to all of the oxygen?
even if its locked in the water their should still be some Oxygen Around that made the water in the first place, or am I way off track here?
Dennis

I second your question, Dennis. But with a diameter of only about 313 miles, I'd surmise that any free oxygen would have escaped long ago. Also, I'm not sure how old Enceladus is but I'm doubting that water was made there after its formation - perhaps the water came With its formation. Of course oxygen could be trapped somewhere below the surface somehow, but I wouldn't know how it got there.

[dmill1220]

Hi Bluefire,
Here is another question in my mind that has me a little confused also,
They say they have detected Methane and other Gases, and from what I understand, its the gravitational forces that may be responsible for heating the interior of the moon, and squeezing the moon to cause theses geysers of ice water, to my mind that means that the water is liquid underground at some time or another, and thus has to be heated to expand, and then be pushed up wards and out, shouldn't this also free up the oxygen thats in the water? I am surmising that if indeed this is water ice that they see, then there must be Oxygen underground, but why they have detected these other gases and no Oxygen really seems to bother my intuition, there seems to be something missing or wrong with my thinking.
Is it not true that, when you heat water, especially under pressure, it should form steam? and Oxygen is also released?
Dennis

[Diana]

Originally Posted by dmill1220

Hi Folks,
I find this Puzzling that no Oxygen has been detected?
You cannot make water without oxygen!
To my knowledge its 2 parts hydrogen and one part oxygen, so if its water that they see what happened to all of the oxygen?
even if its locked in the water their should still be some Oxygen Around that made the water in the first place, or am I way off track here?
Dennis

From what I have read, oxygen has been detected before.

In July 2005, Cassini cruised only 175 kilometers (109 miles) from Enceladus. The spacecraft’s instruments revealed that the large dark cracks, dubbed “tiger stripes,” on the moon’s south pole were warm and spewing out water vapor and ice particles.

The flyby occurred just when a star was moving behind the moon’s southern pole. “As we watched the moon extinguish the light from the star, the spectrometer identified oxygen,” says Esposito. “The starlight showed water molecules between us — the spacecraft — and the star. It showed a localized cloud of water near Enceladus.”

HERE

[dmill1220]

HI Diana!
whew! I thought I was missing a few screws, I tried the first link you gave, and I wasn't able to reach the site, I finally clicked another link that was posted in this thread from MSN HERE, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11736311/
but they did not mention anything about Oxygen in that article just Methane and CO2 and Carbon.
thank you for clearing that up for me, it was driving me crazy!
LOL,
Dennis

[Blue Fire]

Yep, that last link from Diana did it for me too. Thanks, Diana!