Formerly, astrophysics thought the geysers formed from underground liquid water that freezes after shooting above the surface.

The journal Nature, on May 17, 2007, featured the article “High tide on Enceladus” based on two studies concerning the Enceladus’ geysers as photographed by the Cassini flyby on July 14, 2005. One study, led by Nimmo and associates, showed that geyser plumes may be formed by ice plate friction at fault lines. The second study, led by Hurford and associates, states that the orbit of Enceladus and the tides on Saturn make it very possible to produce regular geysers, such as what was found by Nimmo’s team.

Scientists were hopeful that if the geysers were produced by liquid water erupting as vapor and ice in the atmosphere, then primitive microbial life might still exist on Enceladus, the sixth largest moon orbiting Saturn. This new theory on geyser formation on Saturn’s moon does not support the possibility that life is still present.

However, Hurford advises that neither theory can be strictly proven until a dedicated mission is developed to study the subsurface of Enceladus.

The NASA Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft found, in the 1980s, that Enceladus has water ice on its surface, along with identifying basic physical characteristics of the moon. In the 2000s, the NASA Cassini spacecraft, as mentioned earlier, detected more details of Enceladus’ surface and environment. Its active geology included plumes venting from the moon’s south polar region. Since then, scientists have been trying to discover the cause of the geysers.

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