Cassini's Fantastic Photos of Recent Enceladus Flyby

Here is a historic photo taken by the Cassini probe of it's

recent dive through the frozen water geyser erupting from Enceladus'south pole. On the 28th of October 2015 Cassini dove to within 18.6 miles of Enceladus' surface. The tiny icey moon is thought to be a promicing hideout for alien life. The geyser (which is geothermally heated) is spewing water which Cassini availed itself of. So at 12,000 mph the probe collected a drop which it is now analyzing .

Check out the complete Gizmodo article by selecting HERE

Enceladus shows Cassini its hot spots!

In areas, previously not well mapped, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has documented 30 individual geysers, including more than 20 that had not been seen before on Saturn's moon Enceladus. These geysers are situated along a network of fractures on Enceladus' southern pole. Cassini's on-board composite infrared spectrometer shows that the ice sprays contain water ice, water vapor and organic compounds.

The areas around these geysers proved to be very warm by local averages. -135 degrees Fahrenheit and may be as high as -100 degrees Fahrenheit. Compared to an average of -370 Fahrenheit these fracture hot spots are very warm indeed.

This last pass by Cassini will be the last to use visible light cameras, as Enceladus will now enter a 15 year period of darkness.

Check out the complete article on ScienceDaily

Cassini find high speed jets of water on Enceladus

This photo shows jets of water vapor shooting from Saturn's moon Enceladus, taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. These jets extend hundreds of kilometers from the moon's south pole. They were observed during a flyby on 24 October 2007, when the probe's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) observed a star as it passed behind the plumes. By measuring how much starlight was absorbed during the passage, scientists discerned four distinct jets in the plume. The jets were still tightly focused at an altitude of 15 km above the surface, suggesting they were moving faster than 2100 km per hour. There is some speculation that these jets might indicate subsurface oceans of liquid water.

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Thanks to Shaun Saunders for the post

Cassini Pinpoints Source Of Jets On Saturn's Moon Enceladus

It's no secret that I am a big Cassini fan. Every picture from this craft extends our knowledge base of the Saturn. Truth be told though, the vast majority of people disregard the shear distance and technological wizardry that is involved with controlling and receiving pictures from the craft. As a photographer, I am wowed by many of the photos, but these last few of Enceladus and the effort involved in taking high resolution frames. Most of Cassini's pictures are taken with a wide field of view where a little motion relative to the craft are easily compensated for. It's this latest pass that really had me saying "you have got to be kidding me!" Because Cassini was moving so fast and so close to the moon's surface, the effect was, in the words of controller Paul Helfenstein "skeet shooting". He describes it this way.

• "The challenge is equivalent to trying to capture a sharp, unsmeared picture of a distant roadside billboard with a telephoto lens out the window of a speeding car."
• Helfenstein said that from Cassini's point of view, "Enceladus was streaking across the sky so quickly that the spacecraft had no hope of tracking any feature on its surface. Our best option was to point the spacecraft far ahead of Enceladus, spin the spacecraft and camera as fast as possible in the direction of Enceladus' predicted path, and let Enceladus overtake us at a time when we could match its motion across the sky, snapping images along the way."

Amazing.... and even more exciting is the fact that they managed to catch the areas they were looking for which was the geysers that had been documented earlier. The article is a wealth of information.
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Cassini to make unprecedented flyby of Saturn's Enceladus.

NASA has engineered a most unusual flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The spacecraft, will make its closest approach to date, where it will will skirt along the edges of huge geysers that erupt

from fractures on the south pole of Enceladus. Cassini will test for water-ice, dust and gas in the plume. The source of the geysers is of great interest to scientists who think liquid water, perhaps even an ocean, may exist in the area. While flying through the edge of the plumes, Cassini will be approximately 120 miles from the surface. At closest approach to Enceladus, Cassini will be only 30 miles from the moon. In 2005, Cassini's multiple instruments discovered that the tiny moon was gushing water vapor geysers out to a distance of three times its radius. This is the first of four Cassini flybys of Enceladus this year. In June, Cassini completes its prime mission, a four-year tour of Saturn. Cassini's next flyby of Enceladus is planned for August, well into Cassini's proposed extended mission. Cassini will perform seven Enceladus flybys in its extended mission.

Update: here are some of the first pics of that encounter