Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Verifying Enceladus' plumes

Verifying Enceladus' plumes
Verifying Enceladus' plumes Cassini took this set of images on 28 November 2005, trying various exposure settings and rotating the spacecraft 30 degrees between each set of images to make sure that the fuzzy features spotted near the south pole of Enceladus in previous views were not image artifacts but real plumes. Not only did this observation verify the existence of the south polar phenomenon, but it resolved the plumes as being numerous discrete features. It would be some time before the team determined they were individual plumes (with pointlike sources) rather than curtains erupting all along the south polar "tiger stripes". NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / Emily Lakdawalla