Nozair Khawaja

Cassini CDA observes compositional segregation of Enceladus’ ice grains from slow freezing and fragmentation of oceanic spray

Salt-rich ice particles, termed Type 3, are a major compositional group within Enceladus’ plume and Saturn’s E ring and are thought to represent frozen micrometer-sized aerosolized droplets of Enceladus’ salty subsurface ocean. Here, we present an analysis on the basis of ≈1000 m...

Enceladus-like geochemistry fuels methanogenesis under extreme CO 2 limitation

Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus features chemical signatures consistent with an alkaline soda ocean with H 2 production via hydrothermal water-rock reactions. Chemolithoautotrophic methanogenesis is thermodynamically favorable under these conditions, but it is unknown whether CO 2 sc...