>>Joe: A 
small moon, with a 310 mile diameter, kicking
it off the space coast of Saturn just whispered
a big secret into our knowledge spots.
>>Elliott: It has an ocean!
Boom.
>>Joe: Boom indeed.
The Cassini spacecraft has been data mining
Saturn’s sixth largest moon, known as Enceladus,
and that data suggests a Lake Superior sized
reservoir of liquid water swishy-swishes on
the south pole.
>>Elliott: But there’s a catch.
>>Joe: Ahh, there’s always a catch with
discoveries on extraterrestrial bodies.
>>Elliott: The water exists beneath a thick
18 to 24 mile thick slab of ice.
But it’s still cool, because the subsurface
body of water could…(Elliott walks up to
camera and whispers) support life.
>>Joe: (IN the background) Ohhhhhhhhhhh…..
(Normal frame) Cassini’s gravity measurements
suggest that the ocean does in fact exist
and scientists believe it rests on the planet’s
rocky core, which, they think could be silicate
rock, which, could infuse the water with dope
elements like sodium, potassium, sulfer, and
phosphorous.
>>Elliott: And as far as our feeble, tiny
minds figure, those are the elements required
to create life…
>>Joe: As we know it.
>>Elliott: Life as we know it.
And what’s cool about this little space
rock is that there are fissures in the ice,
known as tiger stripes, that blast molecules
into the atmosphere.
And a mass spectrometer detects water and
organic molecules in the stew of crap ejected
forth in the plume.
>>Joe: That organic material doesn’t necessarily
point to “life”, but a more kick-butt
instrument could better analyze those molecules
and open the door to more space secrets.
>>Joe and Elliott: (At the camera lens again)
Tell us your secrets space.
Tell us.
We won’t tell anyone.
Space Secrets.
(We just lower out of frame…beat…our hands
pop up) Space secrets..
Secrets.
