NASA/JPL
Well, in more and more places, anyway. The latest is the Saturnian moon Enceladus, where geysers of water were discovered by scientists on the NASA Cassini mission. The discovery is significant because the presence of water in various locations hints at the possibility of life elsewhere in space. Water is also vital to the enterprise of expanding the presence of human life beyond Earth.
"We realize that this is a radical conclusion -- that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold," said Dr. Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms."
The exciting news took an unusual twist this morning in what started out as an erroneous Internet report of a possible discovery of evidence life itself, as recounted here by Keith Cowing. No microbes or monoliths, but once you have water, who knows?
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