Absolutely stunning imagery of the recent fly-by of Saturn’s moon Enceladus by Cassini presented in a photo animation. You will find little mention of this in the news, and that is mostly because the news does not care. Lost opportunity for the news. We’ve investigated the robotic Cassini probe here before, and it continues to be very, very busy. On March 12th Cassini flew within 30 miles of Enceladus, approaching from above Enceladus’ north pole and thus seeing the moon as a crescent. Some facts on this beautiful moon:
- Enceladus is very bright, reflecting nearly 100% of the light that strikes it
- This is because we believe it is almost entirely covered in water ice
- It’s surface is considered to be geologically young at less than 100 million years old
- There is evidence indicating that the interior of the moon may still be liquid
- It is about 500 km wide, or roughly the width of the state of Arizona
- Enceladus is known as the “geyser moon” because of enormous eruptions
- These are created by the release of energy caused by frictional geothermal heating
More on Enceladus and Cassini’s observations here, here, and here.
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March 17th, 2008 at 8:34 am
I believe if you were to shrink Enceladus down and hold it in the palm of your hand it would be as smooth as a cue ball. Fun fact.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
That is a fun fact. We are on the verge of learning a great deal about this moon. The Cassini-Hueygens program is simply amazing in its scope, value, and with what it has already beamed back to us.
August 16th, 2008 at 6:59 am
[...] moon Enceladus, pictured above in a full color image from a flyby in 2005 and written about on schneiderism before. received a close visit from the Cassini robotic explorer on August 11th. This flyby allowed [...]