Pictures from the NASA spacecraft Cassini have revealed the geysers occurring on the moon of Saturn called Enceladus. For the last seven years Cassini has been studying and sending back images of Saturn and her moons for researchers back home. Now it is photographing the geysers on Enceladus to reveal that liquid water comes forth from some underground sea on the moon.

The icy moon, Enceladus, shows a geological basin on its south polar region which resembles tiger stripes. About 101 geysers have been spotted breaking out of these tiger stripe shapes regions. It is believed that the friction and tides caused by the unusual orbit of the moon around Saturn may be the reason why ice cold water turns into hot geysers.

The study also revealed that the geysers were not a near-surface phenomenon, but have much deeper roots. Specially since the greatest geyser activity was seen to coincide with times of greatest thermal radiation. Researchers found that narrow pathways through the ice shell of the moon’s surface remained open from the underground  sea all the way to the surface, if filled with liquid water.

This is what caused the sky high geysers to erupt when the radiation and heat increased. More images from Cassini will help the researchers continue working on this engrossing science project.