Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturns Enceladus
Explanation:
Do underground oceans vent through the tiger stripes on Saturn's moon Enceladus?
Long features dubbed tiger stripes are known to be
spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space,
creating a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon's South Pole
and creating Saturn's mysterious
E-ring.
Evidence for this has come from the
robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting
Saturn.
Pictured above,
a high resolution image of Enceladus is shown from a close flyby.
The unusual surface features dubbed
tiger stripes are visible in false-color blue.
Why
Enceladus is active remains a mystery, as the neighboring moon
Mimas,
approximately the same size, appears
quite dead.
Most recently, an
analysis of slight gravity deviations has given an
independent indication
of underground oceans.
Such research is particularly interesting since such oceans would be candidates to
contain life.
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.
