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Saturn is "sprinkled" with water from geysers on Enceladus, one of its satellites

Discover water vapor in the atmosphere of Saturn from high geysers on Enceladus, one of its satellites, announced on Tuesday, European Space Agency (ESA), based on data from satellite Herschel.

Identify sources of water vapor in the atmosphere of Saturn's high "solve a mystery 14 years old", says a press release issued by ESA.

Enceladus, a small ice-covered satellite, with a diameter of about 500 kilometers in space eliminates about 250 cubic meters of water vapor due to its geysers located near the south pole, a region that astronomers have called a "tiger stripes" due to the many signs on the surface of the satellite.

These water vapor accumulates in a giant ring-shaped cloud around the moon Enceladus, which orbits Saturn at approximately 238,000 kilometers, a distance corresponding to a length four times the radius of Saturn. This cloud of water vapor has a thickness of about 50,000 kilometers.

Despite its impressive size, it was not detected until recently, because water vapor is transparent in the visible light spectrum, but not in the spectrum of radiation with wavelengths in the infrared, that Herschel could capture them.

The presence of high water in the atmosphere of Saturn was first reported in 1997, Space Telescope observations by ISO (Infrared Space Observatory) launched by ESA, but experts did not know the sources of them.

Only 3-5% of water removed in space reaches Saturn Enceladus, according to digital simulation models made based on the latest data transmitted by satellite Herschel. This percentage is still small enough to explain the presence of water in the planet's high atmosphere.

Enceladus is thus "the only satellite in our solar system known to influence the chemical composition of its planet," says the ESA press release.

The study was published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Tags: what`s happen in space, cosmos, univers, new news from space, our solar system, 29.07.2011 ,2011.07.29