Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Enceladus


Below a darkened Enceladus, a plume of water ice is backlit in this view of one of Saturn's most dramatic moons.

See PIA11688 and PIA08386 to learn more about the jets of water ice emanating from the south polar region of Enceladus. Lit terrain seen here is on the leading hemisphere of Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers across). North is up.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on February 20, 2012. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 83,000 miles (134,000 kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 165 degrees. Image scale is 2,628 feet (801 meters) per pixel.

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

No comments:

Post a Comment