As we on Earth prepare for the best time in 2012 to view Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft – cruising in orbit around Saturn since 2004, studying its rings and moons – has returned this beautiful image. It’s Saturn’s moon Enceladus in a crescent phase, with Saturn’s rings in the bckground. The image was taken with Cassini’s narrow-angle camera on January 4, 2012 at a distance of 181,000 miles (291,000 km) from Enceladus. Image scale is about 2 km per pixel.
Best view of Saturn starts with retrograde on February 8
Saturn’s moon rains water onto Saturn
Image Credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/Space Science Institute
Click here to expand image above
The famous and mystifying jets of water ice emanating from the south polar region of Enceladus are faintly visible in the image above.
Enceladus and its jets.
In the image above, the jets appear as a small white blur below Enceladus’ dark pole, down and to the right of the illuminated part of the moon’s surface. You can see it better if you click to enlarge. Scientists at the European Space Agency enhanced the image’s contrast to increase the jets’ visibility.
The image on the right also shows this amazing feature on Saturn’s moon.
The sunlit terrain seen here is on the trailing hemisphere of Enceladus, whose diameter is 313 miles (504 km). North is up in the image above. This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane.
Bottom line: The Cassini spacecraft returned a beautiful image of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, with Saturn’s ring, on January 4, 2012. The image faintly shows the jets spewing water from Enceladus onto Saturn. Meanwhile, the best time to view Saturn in the night sky is upon us.
