NASA's Cassini spacecraft has found evidence that one of Saturn's moons could actually support life. Enceladus, one of the ringed planets 62 moons may prove to hold the answer to one of astronomy's biggest question: is there life out there?

Enceladus named after the mythological Greek giant is a small and brilliantly white moon orbiting Saturn. Its white reflective surface is frozen frequently by geysers of ice regularly emitted by the moon. These eruptions are so powerful that the moon gives off a stream of crystals as it circles Saturn. The icy exhaust also adds to Saturn's iconic ring system. At first glance this tiny moon seems nothing more than a pretty addition to one of the solar system's intriguing planetary systems but according to a paper published in the scientific journal Nature; this moon holds a vast ocean of saltwater beneath its icy surface.

According to Dr. Carolyn Porco leader of the Cassini Imaging Team Enceladus' ocean could support life similar to the organisms found in Earth. The team reached this conclusion after studying data transmitted by the Cassini spacecraft which has been observing Saturn since 2004. Cassini took measurements of the icy plume shooting out of the moon and found it contained salt. Salt isn't unique in space as it can form when vapors nucleate down from the gas phase to the crystalline phase but this particular salt sample from Enceladus had a heavy concentration of complex salts- salts that are found in oceans.

"There currently is no plausible way to produce a steady outflow of salt-rich grains from solid ice across all the tiger stripes other than saltwater under Enceladus' icy surface," Frank Postberg, a Cassini team scientist at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and the lead author on the paper, said in an article in Time Magazine.

The discovery of an ocean in one of the most distant places from the sun has scientists pushing for more exploratory missions to the tiny Saturn moon.

"This finding is a crucial new piece of evidence showing that environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life can be sustained on icy bodies orbiting gas giant planets," said Cassini project scientist Nicolas Altobelli of the European Space Agency.

Porco encourages landing a probe on Enceladus to gather more data. "All you have to do is land on the surface and stick your tongue out to sample the habitable zone," she said.