Enceladus October 31st, 2008 Encounter, More skeet shooting Options

[Ron Hobbs]

As I understand it, the an Earth-based observation that found no sodium in the plumes and E-ring has been the biggest fly-in-the-ointment regarding the idea that there was a large body of water beneath the crust, be it a localized "sea" or more global "ocean."

Sodium issue clouds Enceladus

Curiously, in that BBC article Torrence Johnson is quoted as saying, "If you took a salt-shaker and threw it into the air, the telescope wouldn't see any sodium, even though half the salt is sodium." That appears to be exactly what Postberg et al. found. (Well, not from a salt-shaker, I mean.)

From my limited knowledge, this discovery, if confirmed, is perhaps the strongest yet that there is a body of water in contact with rock below the south pole. Is this a smoking gun, or a less strong piece of evidence that fits in with the whole?