The water is in contact with the moon‘s rocky core, so elements (6)...... for

life, such as phosphorus, sulphur and potassium, will leach into the ocean.

The (7) .............. discovery, reported in the journal, Science, gives scientists the strongest indication yet that the source of water vapour coming from Enceladus is a large body of water underneath the surface of the icy moon.

An international team led by Luciano Iess at the Sapienza University in Rome inferred the existence of the ocean after (8) .............. a series of exquisite measurements made during three fly-bys between April 2010 and May 2012, which brought the Cassini spacecraft within 100km of the surface of Enceladus.

Enceladus is not the only moon in the solar system to have a subsurface ocean. But Saturn‘s moon has (9) .............. scientists because the vapour plumes from the south pole are known to contain organic molecules. These, along with (10) ............elements, a source of heat and liquid water, make Enceladus a prime candidate in the search for alien organisms.

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