High resolution annotated version
Cassini shot past the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Aug. 11, 2008,
acquiring a set of seven high-resolution images targeting known jet source
locations on the moon's "tiger stripe" fractures, or sulci. Two of those
images are presented in this mosaic; the other five images are shown in
PIA11114.
Features on Enceladus are named for characters and places from "The
Arabian Nights," and the four most prominent sulci are named Alexandria,
Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus. Here, Damascus Sulcus runs across the center,
from left to right.
One highly anticipated result of this flyby was to pinpoint previously
identified source locations for the jets that blast icy particles, water
vapor and trace organics into space (see PIA08385). The yellow circles on the
annotated version of the mosaic indicate source locations II and III identified in
PIA08385).
Scientists are using these new images to study geologic activity
associated with the sulci, and effects on the surrounding terrain. This
information, coupled with observations by Cassini's other instruments, may
answer the question of whether reservoirs of liquid water exist beneath
the surface.
The mosaic consists of two images obtained with the clear spectral filters
on Cassini's narrow-angle camera. The view is an orthographic projection
with an image scale of 24 meters (79 feet) per pixel. The area shown here
is centered on 81.2 degrees south latitude, 309.9 degrees west longitude.
The original images ranged in resolution from 27 to 30 meters (89 to 98
feet) per pixel and were taken at distances ranging from 4,200 to 4,742
kilometers (2,610 to 2,947 miles) from Enceladus.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European
Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages
the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The
Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and
assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space
Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.
For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The Cassini imaging team
homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
