CICLOPS: Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for OPerationS
Enceladus "Rev 121" Flyby Raw Preview #3

Enceladus "Rev 121" Flyby Raw Preview #3
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   This raw, unprocessed image of Enceladus was taken by Cassini on Nov. 21, 2009.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Nov. 21, 2009. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 9,000 kilometers (6,000 miles) from Enceladus and at a high Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle. Image scale is approximately 53 meters (174 feet) per pixel.

The Cassini Equinox Mission is a joint United States and European endeavor. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team consists of scientists from the US, England, France, and Germany. The imaging operations center and team lead (Dr. C. Porco) are based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini Equinox Mission visit http://ciclops.org, http://www.nasa.gov/cassini and http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Released: November 21, 2009
Image/Caption Information


Alliance Member Comments
Dragon_of_Luck_Mah_Jonng1971 (Nov 22, 2009 at 7:18 PM):
Very Interesting image.
Counting the jet sources for the first time I identified 15 of them.

At the upper middle there it's visible that the sulcus is the source of the jets there and that they continue into the night side of Enceladus decidedly.
( This is a new very convincing proof that the jet sources are mainly at the bottom of 'young' , deep sulci. )
mipsandbips (Nov 22, 2009 at 6:51 PM):
The angles of deflection of the jet plumes suggest very strong evidence that there is an underground ocean and it is very close to the surface. An OL mission could be closer that we may expect after seeing these images confirming that fact.
carolyn (CICLOPS) (Nov 22, 2009 at 9:22 AM):
FrankAU: Check out our Artroom/Enceladus for what your imagined scene might look like. Or, the artwork that accompanied my Scientific American article last December on Enceladus. We owe a lot to our space artists.
rochelimit (Nov 22, 2009 at 4:51 AM):
Amazing, you can see the individual jets there on the left.
FrankAU (Nov 21, 2009 at 9:25 PM):
This is my favourite ... solving the implied energy equation seen in all this kinetic is just the entre. Peeking down a sulcus with probe would be .... (words fail)!
astroboy70 (Nov 21, 2009 at 6:46 PM):
In a word...wow. It's awesome to watch the jets actually rise from the sulcus at close range....but even more wondrous are the jets rising into the sunlight from behind the terminator. What an amazing little world.