Saturn's moon Enceladus is sending out long, thin 'curtains' into space

An artist's rendering of the geysers from the southern polar region of Enceladus. New, high-resolution images of Saturn's moon indicate that instead of discrete jets, these may actually be long curtains of material emanating from 120km-long cracks in its surface. Illustration: Nasa/JPL-Caltech/AFP

Saturn's moon Enceladus is famous for spewing tall jets of mineral-rich water several kilometres into the vacuum of space. But a new study suggests that those infamous jets, or geysers, spotted first by the Voyager mission and later by Cassini, may have been an optical illusion.

Fortunately, for Enceladus fans, the reality may be even cooler.