A latest study by NASA's Cassini mission has suggested that many features that were thought to be discrete jets of material erupting from Saturn's moon Escalades could be phantoms created by an optical illusion.

Enceladus is geologically active and thought to have a liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface. This hidden ocean is the presumed source of the plume of water vapor and ice that the Cassini spacecraft has observed venting from the moon's South Polar Region.

A team of scientists including lead author Glein, John Baross of the University of Washington, and J. Hunter Waite Jr. of the Southwest Research Institute, developed a new chemical model based on mass spectrometry data of ice grains and gases in Enceladus' plume.

The data used by researchers was gathered by Cassini, in order to determine the pH of Enceladus' ocean.

Experts said that he pH tells how acidic or basic the water is. It is also a fundamental parameter to understand the geochemical processes occurring inside the moon that are considered important in determining Enceladus' potential for acquiring and hosting life.

Recent findings made by researchers were published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.

The model developed by the team is constrained by data from two Cassini teams, including one led by coauthor Waite. The team's model showed that the plume is salty with an alkaline pH of about 11 or 12, which is similar to that of glass-cleaning solutions of ammonia.

Researchers revealed that the ocean contains the same amount of sodium chloride (NaCl) salt as oceans have on Earth. The additional substantial sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) makes the ocean more similar to earth's soda lakes such as Mono Lake in California or Lake Magadi in Kenya.