Amazing New Close-up Images of Enceladus

By Nancy Atkinson - August 15, 2010 at 7:37 PM UTC | Planetary Science
enceladus.jpg

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Oh, wow! This is one of the best images yet from the Cassini spacecraft of the "tiger stripes" in the south polar region of Saturn's moon

Enceladus

. Over the weekend, Cassini flew by Enceladus, and has sent back some incredible new images, such as the one above. The tiger stripes are actually giant fissures that spew jets of water vapor and organic particles hundreds of kilometers, or miles, out into space, and here, Cassini is staring right down into one of the fissures. See more great images of Enceladus below, plus images of the moons Dione and Tethys.

[caption id="attachment_71298" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Close-up of the cracked, crevassed surface of Enceladus. Credit: NASA/Space Science Institute. "]

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While the winter is darkening the moon's southern hemisphere, Cassini has its own version of "night vision goggles" -- the composite infrared spectrometer instrument - to track heat even when visible light is low. It will take time for scientists to assemble the data into temperature maps of the fissures.

[caption id="attachment_71299" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Enceladus against Saturn's limb. Credit: NASA/Space Science Institute. "]

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[caption id="attachment_71300" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="More plumes on Enceladus. Credit: NASA/Space Science Institute. "]

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[caption id="attachment_71301" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="Close-up of Tethys. Credit: NASA/Space Science Institute"]

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[caption id="attachment_71302" align="aligncenter" width="512" caption="Dione from 115,370 kilometers away. Credit: NASA/Space Science Institute"]

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See more

amazing images

from

Cassini's latest at the CICLOPS website.

Emily Lakdawalla at the

Planetary Blog also has created some very cool movies from the flyby images.

Hat tip to Stu Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com