Scientists have found another clue that the ocean beneath one of Saturn’s moons may be capable of supporting life.

An international team discovered signs of sodium phosphates, a salt sometimes used in deli meat here on Earth, in a plume of ice shot out from a subsurface ocean on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons.

This doesn’t mean someone’s curing meat around Saturn; phosphates are a basic key ingredient in the chemistry of geology and biology. Astronomers have long been interested in oceans on other worlds, since water is a fundamental requirement for life as we know it. If these alien oceans also contain salts and organic molecules like Earth’s oceans do, they, too, might be capable of supporting life.

The difficulty with subsurface oceans is that they’re locked below a thick, icy crust, where NASA’s robotic explorers can’t yet reach. But Enceladus conveniently erupts every once and a while, spewing material from its hidden ocean in a vast plume of water ice. These plumes were originally discovered by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn for 13 years and even flew through some of Enceladus’ plumes, gathering information along the way.

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