Enceladus

The Cassini spacecraft takes a close view of some of the southern terrain of Saturn's moon Enceladus, where newly created terrain is on display.

See PIA11685 for a mosaic of this geologically active moon's leading hemisphere that shows the more recently created terrain of the south polar region meeting older, crater-filled terrain farther north. The area shown here is between the leading hemisphere and Saturn-facing side of Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers across). This view is centered on terrain at 35 degrees south latitude, 45 degrees west longitude. North is up.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on September 13, 2011. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 26,000 miles (42,000 kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 52 degrees. Image scale is 830 feet (253 meters) per pixel.

Photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute