The Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn and its moons since 2004. On October 31, Cassini took high-resolution images of the southern hemisphere of Enceladus when it flew within 171 kilometers of the moon.
Enceladus is famous for the icy plumes it spews from “tiger stripes” — linear fractures at its south polar region.
Cassini passed much closer, within 25 km, of Enceladus on October 9, but during that encounter, the craft’s cameras weren’t taking pictures at closest approach. The craft won’t swoop as close to Enceladus for another year. By that time, the sun will have dipped below the horizon as seen from the south pole, making imaging more difficult.
Enceladus is an amazing moon and I think that it is almost as amazing as Io, one of Jupiter's moons. I hope that the Cassini will be able to take good pictures on it's next flyby of Enceladus. Here are some links pictures of Enceladus :http://www.fas.org/irp/imint/docs/rst/Sect19/Enceladus.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/09/Enceladus_Tiger_Stripes_Up_Close_PIA06247.jpg/600px -Enceladus_Tiger_Stripes_Up_Close_PIA06247.jpg
Here is a link to a picture of Io: http://www.ulb.ac.be/sciences/astro/cd/planetes/jupiter/io_galileo.jpg
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1 comment:
That is cool. The pictures are great!
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