JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE FINDS A GARGANTUAN GEYSER ON SATURN'S MOON

Scientists are longing to go back to the moon to sample the plume material for signs of life

-  Isobel Whitcomb

Scientists caught Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus spraying a huge plume of watery vapour far into space – and that plume likely contains many of the chemical ingredients for life. “It’s immense,” Sara Faggi, a planetary astronomer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said. This isn’t the first time scientists have seen Enceladus spout water, but the new telescope’s wider perspective and higher sensitivity showed that the jets of vapour shoot much farther into space than previously realised.