A crowning achievement of the Cassini mission to Saturn is the discovery of water vapor jets spraying out from Enceladus‘ southern pole. First witnessed by the spacecraft in 2005, these icy geysers propelled the little 320-mile-wide moon into the scientific spotlight. After 22 flybys of Enceladus during its nearly twelve years in orbit around Saturn, Cassini has gathered enough data to determine that there is a global subsurface ocean of salty liquid water beneath Enceladus’ frozen crust—an ocean that gets literally sprayed into space.  Now, new findings from Cassini and researchers at the Planetary Science Institute—with a little help from a star called Epsilon Orionis—has shown that at least some of the vapor jets get a boost in activity when Enceladus is farther from Saturn.

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