This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from 0.34 degrees below the ring plane and was taken September 24 in red light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera.
Advertisement
Now, the main question is how it has been possible.
The process can also be found on earth.
Researchers believe hydrothermal vents at the base of Enceladus’ ocean could be an energy source for microbial life. “Microbes love the stuff, they love to burn hydrogen because it releases a lot of energy when they react it carbon dioxide”, affirmed Glen. Cassini is scheduled to fly past Enceladus at a distance of 3,106 miles (4,999 kilometers) on Saturday, Dec. 19, at 9:49 a.m. PST (12:49 p.m. EST).
After Cassini snapped an image of Enceladus lurking in the darkness, the probe has come back with this stunner of Enceladus nearly merging with the larger, Tethys in what NASA described as a cosmic bulls-eye. “This is really is a world with a habitable environment in its interior”, he said at the American Geophysical Union meeting held in San Francisco.
Parts of the composite are in greater detail than the rest of the moon. Tethys was at a distance of 1.6 million miles (2.6 million kilometers) with a pixel scale of 10 miles (16 kilometers) per pixel.
The south polar region of Enceladus, while well lit for observing observations by Cassini’s visible light cameras when the spacecraft arrived at Saturn in mid-2004, is presently in the darkness of the years-long Saturnian winter. While this sacrifices detail, it allows for a moderate resolution of a few miles per pixel over wider areas.
Cassini is in its last couple years of exploring Saturn.
Advertisement
Lead study author Andrew Ingersoll of Pasadena’s California Institute of Technology said this new finding does not necessarily mean the Saturn moon’s jets are shutting down, noting that no one knows exactly what is happening. NASA says scientists continue to discover new moons orbiting the planet.
