A Tale of Two Hemispheres
Enceladus is a world divided. To the north, the terrain is covered in impact craters, much like other icy moons. But to the south, the record of impact cratering is much more sparse, and instead the land is covered in fractures, ropy or hummocky terrain and long, linear features.
Lit terrain seen here is on the trailing side of Enceladus. North on Enceladus is up. The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 27, 2015.
The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 70,000 miles (112,000 kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 25 degrees. Image scale is 0.4 miles (0.7 kilometers) per pixel.
The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov or http://www.nasa.gov/cassini . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Last Updated: Oct. 26, 2015
Editor: Tony Greicius
NASA's Cassini spacecraft zoomed by Saturn's icy moon Enceladus on Oct. 14, 2015, capturing this stunning image of the moon's north pole.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
This view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows battered terrain around the north pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has begun returning its best-ever views of the northern extremes of Saturn's icy, ocean-bearing moon Enceladus. The spacecraft obtained the images during its Oct. 14 flyby, passing 1,142 miles (1,839 kilometers) above the moon's surface. Mission controllers say the spacecraft will continue transmitting images and other data from the encounter for the next several days.
Scientists expected the north polar region of Enceladus to be heavily cratered, based on low-resolution images from the Voyager mission, but the new high-resolution Cassini images show a landscape of stark contrasts. "The northern regions are crisscrossed by a spidery network of gossamer-thin cracks that slice through the craters," said Paul Helfenstein, a member of the Cassini imaging team at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. "These thin cracks are ubiquitous on Enceladus, and now we see that they extend across the northern terrains as well."
In addition to the processed images, unprocessed, or "raw," images are posted on the Cassini mission website at:
Cassini's next encounter with Enceladus is planned for Oct. 28, when the spacecraft will come within 30 miles (49 kilometers) of the moon's south polar region. During the encounter, Cassini will make its deepest-ever dive through the moon's plume of icy spray, sampling the chemistry of the extraterrestrial ocean beneath the ice. Mission scientists are hopeful data from that flyby will provide evidence of how much hydrothermal activity is occurring in the moon's ocean, along with more detailed insights about the ocean's chemistry -- both of which relate to the potential habitability of Enceladus.
Cassini's final close Enceladus flyby will take place on Dec. 19, when the spacecraft will measure the amount of heat coming from the moon's interior. The flyby will be at an altitude of 3,106 miles (4,999 kilometers).
NASA's Cassini spacecraft spied this tight trio of craters as it approached Saturn's icy moon Enceladus for a close flyby on Oct. 14, 2015.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
An online toolkit for all three final Enceladus flybys is available at:
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, manages the mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. The Cassini imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
For more information about Cassini, visit:
Dwayne Brown / Laurie Cantillo
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726 / 202-358-1077
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov / laura.l.cantillo@nasa.gov
2015-316
Last Updated: Oct. 15, 2015
Editor: Tony Greicius
el dispensador dice:
mientras duermes,
mientras sueñas...
otros mundos lejanos respiran,
conteniendo almas que recitan,
espíritus que laten,
todo mientras respiras,
y alguien viene y te cuenta,
que allí hay vida,
que ni siquiera imaginas,
que existe mientras caminas,
que prescinde de urgencias y rutinas,
que tal vez no tiene forma,
y que no es perceptible si la miras...
sin embargo está allí,
andando en su destino,
mientras tu apenas si trajinas,
circunstancias no elegidas...
o al menos... eso era lo que creías.
OCTUBRE 28, 2015.-
de pronto ellos te observan,
y tú ni te das cuenta...
que cuando molestas,
alguien te vigila.
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