Astronomy Picture of the Day - Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturn's Enceladus

NASA ^ | 25 Aug, 2024 | Image Credit: NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: Do underground oceans vent through canyons on Saturn's moon Enceladus? Long features dubbed tiger stripes are known to 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. Evidence for this has come from the robot Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. Pictured here, a high resolution image of Enceladus is shown from a close flyby. The unusual surface features dubbed tiger stripes are visible in false-color blue. Why Enceladus is active remains a mystery, as the neighboring moon Mimas, approximately the same size, appears quite dead. An analysis of ejected ice grains has yielded evidence that complex organic molecules exist inside Enceladus. These large carbon-rich molecules bolster -- but do not prove -- that oceans under Enceladus' surface could contain life.

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

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[No name given]

Wow.

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

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[xoxox]

love me some tiger-striped enceladus almost as much as the leopard-spotted kind.

[DannyTN]

Those are NOT tiger stripes.

Those are zombie veins.

[null and void]

You’re so vein
You probably think this song is about you
Don’t you don’t you...

[17th Miss Regt]

All white. Must be polar tigers.

[Verginius Rufus]

Who’s going to claim credit for putting the tiger stripes there? LSU, Clemson, Mizzou or Princeton?

[DannyTN]

I thought the apocalypse would come from Uranus, not Saturn.

[Larry Lucido]

Enchiladas? I’d be looking for hot cheese.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

THAT is SO COOL! I am continuing my quest to get Earth’s moon officially named, ‘Luna.’ (Yes, I know ‘Moon’ is her name; from Mōna, which means ‘month’ in Old English.)

All the other planets have COOL names for their moon or multiples thereof! Why not Earth’s?

All the ‘moons’ and all their cool names:

https://littleastronomy.com/moon-names/

P.S. Jupiter and Saturn are MOON HOGS, LOL!

[BenLurkin]

Climate Change

[Venkman]

“ All the other planets have COOL names for their moon or multiples thereof! Why not Earth’s?”

All the other moons wish THEY could be named Moon. Our moon is the archetype.

[Verginius Rufus]

Why prioritize the Latin name? Why not Selene (Greek)? Or Mesyats (Russian)?

[Verginius Rufus]

We don’t know the indigenous names of the moons of Saturn or Jupiter (if any of them have intelligent life). They probably wouldn’t have a name for earth’s moon unless they had invented a telescope.

[Red Badger]

Climate change.
.

[bleach]

Who Dey.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Yeah, I know that too. No wonder my campaign isn’t gaining any traction, LOL!