Astronomy Picture of the Day - Enceladus in True Color

NASA ^ | 10 Jun, 2025 | Image Credit: NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: Do oceans under the ice of Saturn's moon Enceladus contain life? A reason to think so involves long features -- some dubbed tiger stripes -- that are known to be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space. These surface cracks create clouds of fine ice particles over the moon's South Pole and create 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 in true color from a close flyby. The deep crevasses are partly shadowed. 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

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[MtnClimber]

It looks like the top of a bun for a cheeseburger.

[No name given]

Wow.

[CopperTop]

I wonder why the majority of the impacts are in upper areas?

[MtnClimber]

I wonder why the majority of the impacts are in upper areas?

It is likely that the poles are colder and impacts last longer. This is ice over a water layer. There are water geysers so the middle latitude surface may get covered or get melted into the interior to erase impact craters.

[Telepathic Intruder]

Cratered areas usually indicate the least amount of geologic activity, and therefore the oldest. In this case probably the least amount of subsurface ocean.

[BenLurkin]

Dibs on the ice mining contract.

[minnesota_bound]

Do oceans under the ice of Saturn’s moon Enceladus contain life?

Drop a line thru a hole in the ice and go fishing.

[NorthMountain]

Ice mining! The better to make an Ice Worm Cocktail ... no doubt those wretched creatures inhabit this godforsaken moon.

[BenLurkin]

bttt

[Kid Shelleen]

The full moon on June 10, 2025 will be as large and low in the sky as it will be until 2043. The Strawberry Moon, named by Native American tribes for the moment when wild strawberries are at their peak of ripeness, comes every June. But this year’s occurrence is unique because of a major lunar standstill in the moon’s 18.6 year cycle.

Why This Strawberry Moon Is So Rare

[punchamullah]

Enceladus flyby video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piap-T4j720&list=RDpiap-T4j720&start_radio=1