Alien life may have just become a little more realistic for scientists as the discovery of a deep ocean on Enceladus has inspired some new theories.

Using its Cassini spacecraft data, NASA has determined Saturn's icy moon has a watery ocean beneath its surface. According to Space.com, previous discoveries have spotted geysers on Enceladus, but this is the first time scientists have found the source of that vaporized water.

If there were ever to be a manhunt in the outer reaches of the solar system, it would start at Enceladus and Saturn's other icy moon Europa. "I don't know which of the two is going to be more likely to have life. It might be both; it could be neither," study co-author Jonathan Lunine, of Cornell University, told reporters Wednesday "I think what this discovery tells us is that we just need to be more aggressive in getting the next generation of spacecraft both to Europa and to the Saturn system once the Cassini mission is over."

The researchers published their work in the journal Science. The next step for the team will be to confirm the ocean is the source of the geysers that send materials miles into space. Thanks to their force, this will not be too challenging to test.

Cassini began its orbit of Saturn in 2004 and is scheduled to end by diving toward the planet's atmosphere in 2017. Its gravity measurements of Enceladus estimate the ocean is six miles deep and covered by about 25 to 30 miles of the moon's icy surface.

"The Cassini gravity measurements show a negative gravity anomaly at the south pole that however is not as large as expected from the deep depression detected by the onboard camera," study lead author Luciano Iess, of Sapienza University of Rome, said in a NASA press release. "Hence the conclusion that there must be a denser material at depth that compensates the missing mass: very likely liquid water, which is seven percent denser than ice. The magnitude of the anomaly gave us the size of the water reservoir."

The researchers say Enceladus and Europa are unique in that their subsurface oceans are unlike any other icy moons. Instead of lying between thick sheets of ice, theirs have a rocky seabed, which could make for interesting chemical reactions.

"Material from Enceladus' south polar jets contains salty water and organic molecules, the basic chemical ingredients for life," Linda Spilker, Cassini's project scientist at JPL, said in the release. "Their discovery expanded our view of the 'habitable zone' within our solar system and in planetary systems of other stars. This new validation that an ocean of water underlies the jets furthers understanding about this intriguing environment."