Cassini flies by Enceladus

NASA / JPL / SSI / animation by Emily Lakdawalla

Cassini's March 12, 2008 flyby of Enceladus

On March 12, 2008 Cassini flew within 50 kilometers (30 miles) of Saturn's geyser moon Enceladus. Cassini approached from above Enceladus' north pole, seeing the moon as a crescent. As Cassini departed, Enceladus entered Saturn's shadow, so long exposures were required to see Enceladus' surface by light reflected from Saturn's rings to Saturn and then to the moon. As a result of the long exposures, stars streak the backgrounds of these images, and some of the closest images are blurred as Enceladus shrank in the viewfinder while the shutter was open. The 11 approach images were taken with the narrow-angle camera; the 14 departure images were taken with the wide-angle camera.

NASA / JPL / SSI

Enceladus' north pole

As Cassini dove in toward its closest-ever flyby of Enceladus, it captured this three-frame view onto the north pole. Enceladus' north pole is much more heavily cratered than its south pole. But the craters, especially the larger ones, have been modified by subsequent geologic activity, with their centers doming upward; they are also criscrossed by linear tectonic features called "fossae" and "sulci." The two overlapping large craters near the center of the image are triangular Ali Baba and more circular Aladdin, located at 60 degrees north latitude; they form a line pointing to the north pole. To their left is a heavily tectonized region known as Samarkand sulci. Above the two craters (toward the equator) stretches the bright, narrow trough of Isbanir fossa. The area to the right of the two craters, which also contains some prominent sulci, was not imaged by Voyager so had not yet received names at the time that these images were taken.