Cassini 'Tastes' Organic Material at Enceladus

Riding with Robots writes "As previously reported, the robotic spacecraft Cassini recently flew through the mysterious geyser plumes at Saturn's icy moon Enceladus. Today, NASA released the preliminary results of the flyby, including some intriguing findings, such as organic materials 20 times denser than expected and relatively high temperatures along the fissures where the geysers emanate. 'These spectacular new data will really help us understand what powers the geysers. The surprisingly high temperatures make it more likely that there's liquid water not far below the surface,' said one mission scientist."

Comments

Re:Organic?

[Chris Burke]

Does someone want to tell me what definition of "organic" they are using, which can be found in comets and moon geysers?

"Compounds containing carbon".

That's all it means, really. Methane is a common one.