New images of Saturn's Moon Enceladus
November 4th 2008 05:54
Enceladus peeks over the limb of Dione during a partial occultation
The Cassini-Huygens mission was launched in 1997. Since then the Cassini orbiter has conducted numerous flybys of Saturn's frigid moon finding numerous fascinating features like huge water geysers that reach out far above the moon’s surface. There are theories that an unknown mechanism produces heat sources inside Enceladus enough to melt ice into deposits of subsurface water. Under pressure, water bursts through the icy crust in fountain like jets of water and then refreezing when it reaches the surface.
A highly anticipated result of this flyby was to pinpoint previously identified source locations for the jets that blast icy particles, water vapor and trace organics into space
The Cassini-Huygens mission continues to bring new images with its latest fly-by of Saturn’s moon Enceladus at a distance of approximately 5,568 kilometers (3,480 miles). Several new images were captured towards the end of October 2008 using its special' narrow-angle image camera. These images are showing us a more detailed look of Enceladus’ surface features. Of particular interest is the source region for jets II and III that have recently been identified in a trench named Damascus Suclus. What was surprising that these jets did not appear on images in an earlier fly-by, the next fly-by of this region of Enceladus will begin again next year. Unfortunately the sun will be disappearing from the South Pole throughout that time, so that by next year we will have a far dimmer view of a shrinking portion of the South Polar Region. These images are the best we have for the moment for it will be a very long time until we have the chance to see images like these again.
Images: courtesy of NASA/JPL
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by CarlCan
Astroearth
Maybe a little too cold for me, but a nice place to visit.
I guess you are busy voting today LOL....
Cheers
Carl
Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief