Discovery of Enceladus

Enceladus is a small moon of Saturn, about five hundred kilometres across, discovered by the British-German astronomer William Herschel with his large telescope at Slough in England. Its surface is covered with fresh ice and reflects almost all the sunlight that reaches it, making it one of the brightest bodies in the solar system. In 2005 the Cassini spacecraft discovered geysers of water vapour and ice erupting from cracks near its south pole, feeding Saturn's E ring. Later analysis showed that the plumes come from a salty ocean beneath the ice, and that they contain organic molecules and signs of hydrothermal activity on the seafloor. For this reason Enceladus is a leading target in the search for life beyond Earth.

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