Water at Saturn? NASA says maybe

A spacecraft orbiting Saturn may have made a stunning, textbook-altering discovery.

NASA says its Cassini probe may have found liquid water spewing from the beneath the surface of one of the planet's frigid moons in what could be a super-cold version of Earth geysers like Yellowstone's Old Faithful.

There were erroneous reports online and elsewhere throughout the morning today that NASA was going to report finding life on another planet or somewhere else in the solar system. That is not the case.

That said, the finding could have profound implications about life in the solar system.

Launched from Cape Canaveral in 1997, Cassini captured evidence of the geysers during a fly-by of the moon Enceladus late last year.

The team of scientists studying the images and data sent back from the nuclear-powered spaceship speculate in this week's edition of the journal Science that the geysers may be liquid water, gushing from a sort of subsurface volcano beneath the otherwise frozen moon.

The impact, if true, could be a dramatic change in scientists' understanding of the kinds of places in our solar system that could support life.

"We realize that this is a radical conclusion, that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold," Cassini imaging team leader Carolyn Porco said in a written statement released today in advance of the journal article's publication.

"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," said Porco, of the Space Science Institute in Colorado.

Until now, scientists had proof of such activity in only three places in the solar system: Earth, Jupiter's moon Io and Neptune's moon Triton.

The science team says the water theory, if proven, would explain why Cassini measured a lot of oxygen atoms in the Saturn system.

You can read more about the mission and see photographs from Cassini at saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.