Saturn's brilliant jewel, water-ice-covered Enceladus, is the most
reflective body in the solar system.
Reflecting greater than 90 percent of the incidental sunlight, this moon
was the source of much surprise during the Voyager era. Enceladus
(pronounced "en-SELL-uh-duss"), exhibits both smooth and lightly cratered
terrains that are crisscrossed here and there by linear, groove-like
features. It also has characteristics similar to those of Jupiter's
moons, Ganymede and Europa, making it one of Saturn's most enigmatic
moons.
Cassini will investigate its rich geologic record in a series of four
planned close flybys. The first flyby is scheduled for Feb. 17, 2005.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow
angle camera on July 3, 2004, from a distance of 1.6 million kilometers
(990,000 miles) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or
phase angle of about 103 degrees. The image scale is 10 kilometers (6
miles) per pixel. Enceladus is roughly 499 kilometers (310 miles) across.
The image has not been magnified.
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 Cassini-Huygens mission for NASA's Office of Space
Science, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras,
were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based
at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.
For more information, about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit,
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page,
http://ciclops.org.
