The summer sun is shining on Enceladus now, illuminating its northern latitudes and allowing scientists the chance to search for signs of ancient geological activity, according to a NASA statement. By doing this kind of activity, they could get a few help in understanding if the north also was geologically active during a few point of time in the past or not.
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Researchers are hopeful that the encounter will provide them with evidence of the amount of hydrothermal activity occurring in the subterranean ocean of Enceladus and how it affects the moon’s habitability.
Saturn’s moon Enceladus has to compete for attention with Titan and its potential for surfing methane waves, not to mention its “Hollywood” cousin Europa circling Jupiter.
Why, since Cassini has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, is it our first chance to see Enceladus’ north polar region up close? During Cassini’s early-mission encounters with the moon, the northern part of Enceladus was in winter darkness. Beginning in November, mission controllers will begin to slowly raise Cassini’s orbit out of the space around the Saturn’s equator, where flybys of the large moons are more common. The moon is backlit, with its dark outline crowned by glowing jets from the south polar region.
Today’s flyby is, really, only a curtain raiser for another even closer approach.
The next flyby will occur later this month when Cassini passes within 30 miles of Enceladus’ south pole, moving through icy spray from the moon and gathering images and data that will give new insights about what is going on beneath its frozen surface. She goes on to say, “The amount of activity on and beneath this moon’s surface has been a huge surprise to us”. Cassini will examine how much heat is coming from the moon’s interior from an altitude of 3,106 miles.
This series is part of a long series of “lasts” for Cassini.
The probe has been investigating Saturn and its moons for 11 years now since 2004.
For its grand finale, Cassini will repeatedly dive through the space between Saturn and its rings.
“We’ll continue observing Enceladus and its remarkable activity for the remainder of our precious time at Saturn”, said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at JPL. With the mission set to end in 2017, the probe has been busy gathering as much data as possible.
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Icy material continually spews up, which has made the moon fascinating to scientists who want to unravel why it behaves in such a manner.
