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[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

From the December 15, 2006, issue of Science:

A Clathrate Reservoir Hypothesis for Enceladus' South Polar Plume
Susan W. Kieffer, Xinli Lu, Craig M. Bethke, John R. Spencer, Stephen Marshak, and Alexandra Navrotsky
Science 314, 1764-1766 (2006)
Abstract
Supporting Online Material

See also the accompanying News of the Week article "A Dry View of Enceladus Puts a Damper on Chances for Life There" by Richard Kerr.

EDIT: See also the related Space.com story.

2nd EDIT: See "Scientists propose alternate model for plume on Enceladus."

This post has been edited by AlexBlackwell: Dec 14 2006, 07:19 PM

[Littlebit]

I am a little confused by the motivation here: They say it is premature to send a mission to Enceladus searching for life, but I don't see that they have offered any proof that the Porco model is wrong. Any mission launched with the intent of resolving the difference should likely be equipped with some way to look for life.

In any case, the issue may be resolved by Cassini, which will be passing within 30km of Enceladus: If the temperature gradient at the vents is approaches 0C, we should be able to detect it.