APOD: 2025 June 10 Б Enceladus in True Color
Explanation:
Do oceans under the ice of Saturn's moon
Enceladus contain life?
A reason to think so involves
long features -- some dubbed tiger stripes -- that are known to be
spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space.
These surface cracks create clouds of fine ice particles
over the moon's South Pole and create
Saturn's
mysterious
E-ring.
Evidence for this has come from the
robot Cassini spacecraft that orbited
Saturn from 2004 to 2017.
Pictured here, a high resolution image of
Enceladus is shown in true color from a close flyby.
The deep crevasses are partly shadowed.
Why
Enceladus is active remains a mystery, as the neighboring moon
Mimas, approximately the same size, appears
quite dead.
A analysis of
ejected ice grains
has yielded evidence that complex organic molecules.
These large carbon-rich
molecules bolster -- but do not prove --
that oceans under Enceladus' surface could
contain life.
APOD Turns 30!:
Free public lecture in Anchorage tomorrow (Wednesday) at 7 pm
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.
