The case for habitability in Enceladus' warm, ice-capped ocean is growing. Ever since Cassini found evidence of hydrothermal activity in the moon's ocean, and detected life's building blocks in the plumes of material ejected from the ocean, scientists have worked to put this data into context.
One of the most important factors in habitability is time. The conditions that support habitability need to persist, like they have on Earth for billions of years. One of those factors is a world's heat budget. A planet, or moon in this case, needs to moderate its temperature and maintain a balance in its heat flow. Too much cooling or too much heating can both damage the prospects for long-term habitability.
The Cassini mission was in the Saturnian system for about 13 years. During that time, it performed many flybys of Enceladus. The mission found plumes of water ice and vapour erupting from deep cracks in the ice covering the moon's south pole. Scientists used the data from these flybys to measure the amount of heat coming from the south pole.
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