It will come within 30 miles of the surface of the south polar region, where the spray is ejected through fractures on the moon’s surface.
Advertisement
“This is a very big step in a new era of exploring ocean worlds in our solar system, bodies with great potential to provide life”.
Among the questions scientists have is whether moon’s global ocean has the right mixture of chemicals and energy to create conditions to support possibly simple forms of life.
Scientists say that the presence of molecular hydrogen will be an indication of the extent of hydrothermal activity going on beneath the moon’s surface. And then scientists should be able to definitely know these things once the ion and neutral mass spectrometer instrument (INMS) aboard the spacecraft is able to detect the molecular hydrogen within the plume coming out from Enceladus – according to NASA.
Using Cassini’s cosmic dust analyser instrument, scientists expect the flyby will lead to a better understanding of the chemistry of the icy plume is it targeting.
The low altitude of the encounter is meant to increase the spacecraft’s access to heavier, more massive molecules, including organics.
In what could be the biggest mission of NASA’s Cassini, the spacecraft will be hovering over Saturn’s moon Enceladus to find out if humans can inhabit the area in the future. Hydrogen amount will also give clues on the level of hypothermal activity happening on Enceladus.
Cassini is the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn, and it has been circling the planet since 2004.
The surface of the 498km moon is thought to be covered in a thick layer of frozen water with a liquid ocean below.
“This incredible plunge through the Enceladus plume is an wonderful opportunity for NASA and its worldwide partners on the Cassini mission to ask, ‘Can any icy ocean world host the ingredients for life?'” explained Cassini program scientist Dr. Curt Niebur.
The flyby will occur at about 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT) Wednesday.
NASA said the flyby would also shed light on what the plume looked like – whether it was composed of column-like jets, an icy curtain, or both – and how much material is being sprayed into space, which would have implications for how long Enceladus had been active.
So Wednesday’s event is pretty special, Spilker said.
Advertisement
The $3.2 billion Cassini mission, a joint effort involving NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, launched in 1997.
