The topography of planetary surfaces tells us much about the geologic
history and forces involved, and volcanically active Enceladus is no
exception. New topographic maps give us a fresh unprecedented look at this
tortured moon. This perspective view shows the oldest most heavily
cratered terrains on the surface. Long ridges and grooves and numerous
younger narrow parallel fractures cut across many of these craters,
showing that even this ancient terrain has not escaped the extensive
tectonic deformation that has wracked this small icy moon. The larger
craters in the foreground are typically 2 kilometers across and a few
hundred meters deep. This perspective view was constructed from digital
elevation models produced by Dr. Paul Schenk (http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lpi/schenk/) at the
Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, TX, based on stereo and
shape-from-shading analysis of Cassini images acquired in March 2005.
Vertical relief has been exaggerated by a factor of 10 to aid interpretation.
The raw data from which this product was developed were retrieved from the
Planetary Data System's Cassini archives. 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. (http://ciclops.org)
