Two papers in Science Advances by Frank Postberg, Vanessa Helmbrecht and colleagues at Freie Universität Berlin and LMU Munich find that ocean spray freezes slowly inside the ice cracks, concentrating salts and organic molecules in the grains a spacecraft could sample, and that methane-producing microbes stay active under Enceladus-like conditions. Our take: good news for ESA’s Enceladus mission planned for the early 2040s – the plumes may carry clearer clues than models suggested.
2papers in Science Advances
2040sESA Enceladus mission