This view of Saturn’s moon Enceladus narrowly above the planet’s ring plane was captured by the narrow-angle camera of NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on 29 July 2015 at a distance of approximately 630,000 miles (1.0 million kilometres) from Enceladus. Enceladus is subject to forces that heat a global ocean of liquid water under its icy surface, resulting in its famous south polar water jets which are just visible below the moon’s dark, southern limb. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.Although Enceladus and Saturn’s rings are largely made up of water ice, they show very different characteristics. The small ring particles are too tiny to retain internal heat and have no way to get warm, so they are frozen and geologically dead. Enceladus, on the other hand, is subject to forces that heat its interior to this very day. This results in its famous south polar water jets, which are just visible below the moon’s dark, southern limb, along with a sub-surface ocean.
Recent work by Cassini scientists suggests that Enceladus (313 miles or 504 kilometres across) has a global ocean of liquid water under its surface. This discovery increases scientists’ interest in Enceladus and the quest to understand the role of water in the development of life in the solar system.
This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 0.3 degrees below the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on 29 July 2015.
The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 630,000 miles (1.0 million kilometres) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase angle of 155 degrees. Image scale is 4 miles (6 kilometres) per pixel.
The icy material making up Saturn’s rings is raining down into the planet’s atmosphere at rates implying the rings will disappear over the next 100 million to 300 million years.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft plunged into the atmosphere of Saturn in 2017, concluding a hugely successful mission to explore the planet, its rings and icy moons. The spacecraft’s close-up images of Saturn’s ring system likely will remain unmatched for decades to come.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has sent to Earth its first views of Saturn’s atmosphere since beginning the latest phase of its mission. The new images show scenes from high above Saturn’s northern hemisphere, including the planet’s intriguing hexagon-shaped jet stream.
