Enceladus Backlit by Saturn

That's a pretty amazing picture of Enceladus. Maybe it's because the surface is coated in ice, but it almost doesn't look real to me. Looks like it's made out of clay or something.

I wonder how big Enceladus actually is under all of that ice. How long has it been 'leaking'? Why hasn't all of the water leaked out into space already?

For those interested in Enceladus, heres a really informative and inspirational TEDtalk on the topic.

www.ted.com...

Its brief and concise. Definitely gives the impression that there is all kinds of hope for life on this small moon.

Looks good, we have a lot of stuff in this solar system lol. Would suck if we were a lone gunner.

reply to post by elevenaugust


awesome post... nice to see Cassinni had some sort of relevance... considering the fact that it had like 2 pounds of plutonium 238 in it after they did a slingshot around the moon.... a microgram could give you cancer and they had 2 pounds of that crap... enough to give the world cancer... I ran it as a disad in CX debate when I was in high school...

Its a little interesting the resolution of the photo since megapixels only recently entered the American lexicon within the past 10 years... every other image i have seen from casssini was all blurry and looked like my first generation cell phone taking pictures of planets....

but its still a cool pic nonetheless... S&F

that is an amazing picture, thank you for posting it it's been saved to my computer

reply to post by elevenaugust


very very cool pic it almost looks like planet Hoth from starwars where the rebels had their hidden base

reply to post by elevenaugust


Wow, looks like paper. Good post. S And F for you.

They got rid of it's aura. That isn't right.

Originally posted by Illustronic

Originally posted by intrptr
reply to post by Illustronic

 

Have I heard correctly that if you were to somehow find yourself standing on the moons surface, that your body heat would create an ice geyser as you sank into it? Like it is totally frozen gasses like ammonia and methane on the surface and the difference in human body temp and the frozen surface is like throwing a hot coal into water?

How about the stuff escaping the "vents". Is that like a CO2 fire extinguisher shooting up in the air?

I've never heard that one, the surface and gas erupting from the polar hot spot is water ice. Here on JPL's Cassini site hit the virtual tour in the At a Glance box for a brief rundown. Its surface is nearly all water ice, trace amounts of CO2, NH3 (ammonia), and undefined and crystalline water ice, the plumes have no ammonia trace. It's the most reflective object in the solar system, keeping its surface -200ºC.

Enceladus is a puzzle, and has a complex number of tidal forces, a complex orbit and tectonic structure.

I can link a couple papers about its orbit if interested, but part of the Cassini spacecraft is to get more information of its surface composition.

Well then, that would explain where the ice comes from that makes up saturns rings!

The picture looks like a model, not real to me, just doesn't look like a real picture.

Anyone else notice where glaciers separate 'continents' or land masses? Look in the top right, there's a definitive line where the impact craters end on either side of what looks like a terrestrial glacial flow that ends in what looks like a terrestrial frozen ocean. There are a couple small impact craters on the ice shelf itself, but all that means is that those are more than likely 'recent' impacts.

However, what IS more interesting is the fact that there are so few impact craters on the ice shelf, while the continents are more-or-less covered in craters. Which means the ice must melt and reform periodically...or at least between the time the moon was extensively pelted by meteorites and the current 'time' the surface must have liquified.

...OR those geysers at the bottom-left are creating some formulation of snow which is falling on the surface filling the craters so that they are not visible. However, I doubt this as there doesn't seem to be much of an atmosphere, since the geysers seem to be pushing out more than a couple kilometers in altitude.

Thoughts?

Originally posted by elevenaugust
Check out this amazing view of Saturn's moon Enceladus....

This image resolution, Enceladus is not a perfect sphere, but the best I can extend the image out to a full circumference, and considering Enceladus is around 310 miles in diameter, this image is about 3.34 miles per pixel at this proximity.

Enceladus is geologically active today. Scientists with the magnetometer instrument have found an atmosphere on Enceladus. This is the first time an atmosphere has been detected on a moon of Saturn other than Titan. JPL Cassini. Enceladus is one of only three outer solar system bodies (Io and Neptune's moon Triton) where active eruptions have been observed.

Its highly elliptical 'egg shaped' orbit around Saturn and orbital resonance with other moon's orbits crack up the moon into five tectonic plates, with the polar area of the plumes, and tiger stripe crevasses being resurfaced and void of craters, but don't quote literally the description I use, its a complex subject.

Spin-Orbital Secondary Resonance Dynamics

Wow, so few craters for the moon of a planet surrounded by asteroids.

Sweet picture man (or woman)! Is it me or does it look like streams of water like rivers that dried up and left behind those trails.

Maybe i'm just thinking too outside the box. But hey, that's what i do best!

anyone else notice it looks like its got track marks from a vehicle over its surface

reply to post by elevenaugust


Wonderful picture. Could so easily be a Quantum view - a particle in the great void within.

reply to post by Hundroid


Exactly what I was thinking too! The entire left side of Enceladus seems to be devoid of craters. Wonder if Enceladus is also phase-locked with Saturn and that somehow shields this side from meteorites bombarding the surface.

Looks fake to me. Looks like a 3D model with a clever bump map or normal map. It looks way too clear as well, like a near perfectly clean lens was used. I NEVER suspect any images from NASA being fake, but this one really looks fake to me... oh and I'm a graphic artist.

Here's another hi-res view of Encelade, directly lit by the sun:



I was wondering what could be the cause of the blueish aspect of the canyons in the lower part?
Iced water?

SOURCE: NASA journal

I hope some day we will see travel posters that say...

"Don't travel to the stars, there is plenty to see at home!"

Besides who wants to travel to Alpha Centauri, where the waiters are rude and you never get what you order. The Jellyfish people of Enceladus have such rustic charm...

i call bs 3d model