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    Enceladus tagged posts

    Surprise methanol detection points to evolving story of Saturn’s moon Enceladus’s plumes

    July 5, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    NASA image of Enceladus within the E-ring in orbit around Saturn, where it is possible that the methanol detection could originate further out in the E-ring. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute. Click for a larger image

    NASA image of Enceladus within the E-ring in orbit around Saturn, where it is possible that the methanol detection could originate further out in the E-ring. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute. Click for a larger image

     
    A serendipitous detection of the organic molecule methanol around an intriguing moon of Saturn suggests that material spewed from Enceladus undertakes a complex chemical journey once vented into space. This is the first time that a molecule from Enceladus has been detected with a ground-based telescope. Dr Emily Drabek-Maunder, of Cardiff University, will present the results on Tuesday 4th July at the National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Hull.
     
    Enceladus’s plumes are thought to originate in water escaping from a subsurface ocean t...
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    New Insights into ‘Ocean Worlds’ in our Solar System

    April 14, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This graphic illustrates how Cassini scientists think water interacts with rock at the bottom of the ocean of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, producing hydrogen gas. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Southwest Research Institute

    This graphic illustrates how Cassini scientists think water interacts with rock at the bottom of the ocean of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus, producing hydrogen gas. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Southwest Research Institute

    Two veteran NASA missions are providing new details about icy, ocean-bearing moons of Jupiter and Saturn, further heightening the scientific interest of these and other “ocean worlds” in our solar system and beyond. Cassini scientists announce that a form of chemical energy that life can feed on appears to exist on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and Hubble reports additional evidence of plumes erupting from Jupiter’s moon Europa.

    “This is the closest we’ve come, so far, to identifying a place with some of the ingredients needed for a habitable environment,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, as...

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    An Ocean Lies a few kilometers beneath Saturn’s Moon Enceladus’s Icy Surface

    June 21, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Image showing the thickness of Enceladus's ice shell, which reaches 35 kilometers in the cratered equatorial regions (shown in yellow) and less than 5 kilometers in the active south polar region (shown in blue). Credit: © LPG-CNRS-U. Nantes/U. Charles, Prague

    Image showing the thickness of Enceladus’s ice shell, which reaches 35 kilometers in the cratered equatorial regions (shown in yellow) and less than 5 kilometers in the active south polar region (shown in blue). Credit: © LPG-CNRS-U. Nantes/U. Charles, Prague

    With eruptions of ice and water vapor, and an ocean covered by an ice shell, Saturn’s moon Enceladus is one of the most fascinating in the Solar System, especially as interpretations of data provided by the Cassini spacecraft have been contradictory until now. An international team recently proposed a new model that reconciles different data sets and shows that the ice shell at Enceladus’s south pole may be only a few kilometers thick...

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    Cassini Captures Group Photo of Tethys, Enceladus, Mimas

    February 23, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Image: Cassini captures group photo of Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas

    Three of Saturn’s moons, Tethys, Enceladus and Mimas, taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on December 3, 2015 is shown in this NASA image released on February 22, 2016. © NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute / Reuters

    Tethys (660 miles or 1,062 kilometers across) appears above the rings, while Enceladus (313 miles or 504 kilometers across) sits just below center. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across) hangs below and to the left of Enceladus. This view looks toward the sunlit side of the rings from about 0.4 degrees above the ring plane. The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Dec. 3, 2015.

    The view was acquired at a distance of ~837,000 miles from Enceladus, with an image scale of 5 miles per ...

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