Cassini Passes Through Ice Plumes of Enceladus
Explanation:
What telling impurities taint the ice plumes of Enceladus?
To help answer this question, the robotic
Cassini spacecraft dove last week to within 30 kilometers of Saturn's ice-plume
emitting moon.
At this
closest-ever approach, Cassini attempted to sniff and obtain chemical data on
particles ejected from Enceladus' regular surface,
while at other times Cassini flew right through -- and sampled --
ice geysers directly.
Searches in the data
for impurity clues in the water-ice dominated plumes and
surface ejecta are progressing.
Although the main purpose of this flyby was
particle analysis, several
interesting images are emerging.
Visible in the
above image, for example, is an unusual gray sheen running vertically up the
image center that might be water vapor escaping from
surface canyons.
Other
notable features
visible above include vast plains of craterless
icy grooves, the day-night
terminator
across the image left,
and an area near the top comparatively rich in craters.
Cassini is
scheduled to buzz by
Enceladus
in an imaging run near the end of this month.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
