{"id":15987,"date":"2015-10-19T17:24:51","date_gmt":"2015-10-19T09:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/cassini-transmits-home-first-views-of-enceladus-north-pole\/"},"modified":"2015-10-19T17:24:51","modified_gmt":"2015-10-19T09:24:51","slug":"cassini-transmits-home-first-views-of-enceladus-north-pole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/cassini-transmits-home-first-views-of-enceladus-north-pole\/","title":{"rendered":"Cassini transmits home first views of Enceladus\u2019 north pole"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"NASA's
NASA\u2019s Cassini spacecraft zoomed by Saturn\u2019s icy moon Enceladus on Oct. 14, 2015, capturing this stunning image of the moon\u2019s north pole. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 4,000 miles (6,000 kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 9 degrees. Image scale is 115 feet (35 meters) per pixel. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/Space Science Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rushing past Saturn\u2019s icy moon Enceladus at dizzying speed, NASA\u2019s Cassini spacecraft took its first pictures of the captivating object\u2019s sunlit north pole last week, revealing cracks in the moon\u2019s frozen crust and crater fields extending dozens of miles across.<\/p>\n

In its final two years orbiting Saturn, Cassini flew by Enceladus on Oct. 14 at a distance of 1,142 miles (1,839 kilometers), yielding the best ever views of the moon\u2019s north pole, which was mired in darkness earlier in the probe\u2019s mission.<\/p>\n

Scientists say Enceladus harbors a global ocean deep beneath the moon\u2019s outer frozen layer, and vents emanate from cracks near its south pole, launching material from the subsurface sea into space. Cassini\u2019s next flyby Oct. 28 will dip deeper into the plumes than ever before to sample the stuff.<\/p>\n

But the mission\u2019s Oct. 14 encounter focused on the north pole.<\/p>\n

The images show craters scattering Enceladus\u2019 northern polar plains, including a set of three connected impact basins scientists have dubbed the moon\u2019s \u201csnowman\u201d feature.<\/p>\n

\"NASA's
NASA\u2019s Cassini spacecraft spied this tight trio of craters as it approached Saturn\u2019s icy moon Enceladus for a close flyby on Oct. 14, 2015. The craters, located at high northern latitudes, are sliced through by thin fractures \u2014 part of a network of similar cracks that wrap around the snow-white moon. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Oct. 14, 2015 at a distance of approximately 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometers) from Enceladus. Image scale is 197 feet (60 meters) per pixel. Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/Space Science Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A network of thin cracks \u2014 already observed elsewhere on Enceladus \u2014 extend across the northern hemisphere, the flyby discovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe northern regions are crisscrossed by a spidery network of gossamer-thin cracks that slice through the craters,\u201d said Paul Helfenstein, a member of the Cassini imaging team at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. \u201cThese thin cracks are ubiquitous on Enceladus, and now we see that they extend across the northern terrains as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the brightest objects in the solar system, Enceladus is about the size of the U.S. state of Arizona with surface temperatures as cold as minus 330 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 201 degrees Celsius). It completes an orbit of Saturn in less than 33 hours.<\/p>\n

Scientists hope to learn whether the moon\u2019s north pole shows signs of recent geologic activity like Enceladus\u2019 southern hemisphere.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, researchers announced that hydrothermal vents may be present on the floor of Enceladus\u2019 underground ocean, raising hopes the moon could host environments habitable by microbial life. The Oct. 28 flyby \u2014 at a distance of a mere 30 miles (49 kilometers) \u2014 is geared toward revealing more about what is going on below Enceladus\u2019 frozen veneer, collecting data that could shed light on the suspected subsurface hydrothermal activity.<\/p>\n

\"This
This view from NASA\u2019s Cassini spacecraft shows battered terrain around the north pole of Saturn\u2019s icy moon Enceladus.
Credit: NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/Space Science Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been following a trail of clues on Enceladus for 10 years now,\u201d said Bonnie Buratti, a Cassini science team member and icy moons expert at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. \u201cThe amount of activity on and beneath this moon\u2019s surface has been a huge surprise to us. We\u2019re still trying to figure out what its history has been, and how it came to be this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

A final visit to Enceladus is planned for Dec. 19, then the plutonium-powered Cassini orbiter will shift its orbit for a final series of flybys of Saturn\u2019s largest moon Titan before diving between the gas giant\u2019s outer atmosphere and famous rings for the first time.<\/p>\n

Ground controllers plan to guide Cassini into Saturn on Sept. 15, 2017, to end the mission before it runs out of fuel, completing a 13-year tour at the ringed planet.<\/p>\n

Email the author.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASA\u2019s Cassini spacecraft zoomed by Saturn\u2019s icy moon Enceladus on Oct. 14, 2015, capturing this stunning image of the moon\u2019s north pole. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 4,000 miles (6,000 kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 9 degrees. Image scale is 115 feet (35 meters) per […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2394,1559,1562],"class_list":["post-15987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-cassini","tag-enceladus","tag-saturn"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15987"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15987\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}