Saturnlit moon, sunlit fountains

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla

2011/10/07 06:00 CDT

Topics: Saturn's moons, Enceladus, Cassini, pretty pictures, amateur image processing

It's been a week of very heavy science on this blog, so I thought it'd be nice to go into the weekend with a post in which a breathtaking picture speaks for itself, without needing my thousands of words. Here is Enceladus, its south polar plumes lit by sunlight, its seamed nightside washed with the yellow glow of Saturnlight. The image is part of the latest quarterly deposit of data into NASA's Planetary Data System made by the Cassini team this week.

NASA / JPL / SSI / Color composite by Gordan Ugarkovic

Fountains of Enceladus

A Cassini view of the south pole of Enceladus taken on November 30, 2010, in approximately natural color. Most of the visible surface of Enceladus is the night side, lit yellowly by Saturnshine. The south polar plumes are lit from behind and slightly below by the Sun; rows of plumes from different tiger stripes rise from above Enceladus' shadow at different heights above the pole.