Cassini To Fly Through Enceladus' Plume March 12 (Video)

By Nancy Atkinson - March 7, 2008 at 7:18 AM UTC | Planetary Science
enceladus-flyby.jpg

The venerable Cassini spacecraft will make an extremely close flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus, one of the most intriguing moons in the Saturn system. Earlier flybys by Cassini revealed a geyser-like plume of ice particles shooting up from Enceladus' south pole region. This means there's a water source on the moon, and of course, water on another body in our solar system is an intriguing mystery that we want to take a closer look at. And this look will be extremely close. At one point during the flyby, when Cassini is near the equator of Enceladus, the spacecraft will only be about 50 km from the moon’s surface.

Cassini will skim over moon on March 12, at 19:06 UT. When Cassini is near the south pole, however, the spacecraft will be about 200km from Enceladus' surface-- which is probably a good thing. Even a small particle hitting the spacecraft could do a lot of damage, and the scientists say Cassini should be flying well above where any ice particles should be.

Learn more about the flyby in this

video that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

put together.

Also, this graphic shows the areas on Enceladus that will be observable to Cassini as it whizzes by. Cassini's scientists are hoping this flyby will help us understand the interior of this moon and how extensive its water source may be.

Original News Source:

Cassini website

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