28, 2015 image provided by NASA shows Saturn’s moon Enceladus, center, as the Cassini spacecraft prepared to make a close flyby of the icy moon. Those analyses are likely to take several weeks, but should provide important insights about the composition of the global ocean beneath Enceladus’ surface and any hydrothermal activity occurring on the ocean floor.
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The probe skimmed 49 kilometres above the moon’s southern polar region, sampling and collecting data on the spray that is believed to emanate from a subterranean ocean.
The new images are all “raw”, meaning they haven’t been processed, so many of them are a little grainy without any cleanup.
But scientists hope Wednesday’s flyby will shed light on the potential habitability of Enceladus’ ocean.
“Mission controllers established two-way communication with the spacecraft this afternoon and expect it to begin transmitting data from the encounter this evening”, NASA said in a statement late Wednesday.
An unprocessed view of plumes shooting out of Enceladus south pole as Cassini approached Wednesday.
According to NASA, Cassini doesn’t have the ability to detect actual lifeforms in the sample – its instrumentation just was not designed for that – but this is is a step toward finding out if there could be a few form of life floating around within this world. It has taken water samples by passing through icy plumes erupting from the moon’s South Pole.
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Enceladus is just one of more than 60 confirmed moons orbiting the giant, ringed planet Saturn. A portion of the planet’s ring is at right.
