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Saturn's moon Enceladus has vents emerging from a sub-surface ocean, offeringunique probes into the liquid environment. These vents drain into the largerneutral torus in orbit around Saturn. We present a methanol (CH3OH) detectionobserved with IRAM 30-m from 2008 along the line-of-sight through Saturn'sE-ring. Additionally, we also present supporting observations from the Herschelpublic archive of water (ortho-H2O; 1669.9 GHz) from 2012 at a similarelongation and line-of-sight. The CH3OH 5(1,1)-4(1,1) transition was detectedat 5.9 sigma confidence. The line has 0.43 km/s width and is offset by +8.1km/s in the moon's reference frame. Radiative transfer models allow for gascloud dimensions from 1750 km up to the telescope beam diameter ~73000 km.Taking into account the CH3OH lifetime against solar photodissociation and theredshifted line velocity, there are two possible explanations for the CH3OHemission: methanol is primarily a secondary product of chemical interactionswithin the neutral torus that (1) spreads outward throughout the E-ring or (2)originates from a compact, confined gas cloud lagging Enceladus by severalkm/s. We find either scenario to be consistent with significant redshifted H2Oemission (4 sigma) measured from the Herschel public archive. The measuredCH3OH:H2O abundance (> 0.5 per cent) significantly exceeds the observedabundance in the direct vicinity of the vents (~0.01 per cent), suggestingCH3OH is likely chemically processed within the gas cloud with methane (CH4) asits parent species.

Ground-based detection of a cloud of methanol from Enceladus: When is a biomarker not a biomarker?