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29 MAR. 2012
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The international Cassini spacecraft was on its way to its lowest pass yet over the south polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus when it took this image of the impressive plumes.
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Enceladus plumes
The plumes are jets of water ice and vapour, mixed with organic compounds. With this flyby coming within a mere 74 km, scientists hope to learn more about the composition, density and variability of these remarkable features of Enceladus.
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Saturn’s moon Dione
A day after the flyby, Cassini imaged Dione, another of Saturn’s moons. From a distance of 44 000 km, features like impact craters are clearly visible on the side of the moon that faces away from the Sun.
Notes for editors
The Cassini–Huygens mission is a cooperative project between NASA, ESA and the Italian space agency, ASI. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, DC, USA. The Cassini orbiter and its two cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations centre is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
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Far-off cousin of part-time African lake found on Titan
A region on Saturn’s moon Titan has been found to be similar to the Etosha Pan in Namibia, Africa. Both are ephemeral lakes – large, shallow depressions that sometimes fill with liquid.
Rings, Titan and Enceladus
Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus hangs below the gas giant’s rings while Titan lurks in the background, in this new image taken by the Cassini spacecraft.
Saturn and Titan
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon at 5150 km across, looks small here, pictured to the right of the gas giant in this infrared image taken by the Cassini spacecraft.
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