The mission is already set to conclude in 2017, so the little probe has been collecting as much data as possible on both Saturn and its icy moon Enceladus.
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Cassini’s final close Enceladus flyby will take place on December 19, passing by at an altitude of 3,106 miles (4,999 kilometers). Now that the summer sun is shining on the high northern latitudes of Enceladus, NASA said, scientists will be looking for signs of ancient geological activity similar to the geyser-spouting, tiger-stripe fractures in the moon’s south polar region. The spacecraft will measure the amount of heat coming from the moon’s interior.
During Cassini’s previous encounters with the moon, a large swath of its northern hemisphere was hidden by the darkness of winter.
The feat was accomplished October 14 at 6:41 a.m. EDT (10:41 a.m. GMT) almost two years before the mission is slated to end.
Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004 and still has about two years left on its mission.
Enceladus has proven to be one of Cassini’s most notable successes in terms of discoveries. The moon is backlit, with its dark outline crowned by glowing jets from the south polar region.
The geysers, along with the presence of a global ocean of water on Enceladus, and evidence of hydrothermal activity – similar to the activity we see on the ocean floor here on Earth – may mean that the Saturn moon is one of the best places in the solar system to search for life beyond our own planet.
Here is the ocean-bearing icy moon Enceladus.
“This proves that there must be a global layer of liquid separating the surface from the core”.
Cassini captured Enceladus’ fractured and heavily cratered north pole.
The discoveries have propelled Enceladus to a top destination for future space missions.
Cassini, NASA’s spacecraft in the Saturn system, has launched the first of its three scheduled close approaches of the planet’s icy moon Enceladus.
Cassini scientists are hopeful data from that flyby will provide evidence of how much hydrothermal activity is occurring in the moon’s ocean, and how the amount of activity impacts the habitability of Enceladus’ ocean.
Scientists still try to learn more about the celestial body’s history and how it managed to be this way.
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Cassini spacecraft image from 2010 of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. He continues, “It is therefore very tempting to imagine that life could exist in such a habitable realm, a billion miles from our home”.
