Fresh Tiger Strips on Saturns Enceladus
Explanation:
The tiger stripes on Saturn's moon Enceladus might be active.
Even today, they
may be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space,
creating a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon's South Pole
and creating Saturn's mysterious
E-ring.
Recent evidence for this has come from the
robot Cassini spacecraft now orbiting
Saturn.
Cassini detected a marked increase in particle collisions
during its July flyby only 270 kilometers over a South Polar region of
Enceladus.
Pictured above,
a high resolution image of Enceladus is shown from the close flyby.
The unusual surface features dubbed
tiger stripes are visible on the left in false-color blue.
Why
Enceladus is active remains a mystery, as the neighboring moon
Mimas,
approximately the same size, appears
quite dead.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
