This graphic illustrates the interior of Saturn's moon Enceladus. It shows
warm, low-density material rising to the surface from within, in its icy
shell (yellow) and/or its rocky core (red). A NASA-funded study says
Enceladus might have rolled or rotated itself to place this area of low
density at the south pole. This finding is in the June 1, 2006, issue of
the journal Nature.
This graphic uses parts of visible-light images taken by the Cassini
spacecraft camera that have been modified for the purpose of showing the
interior structure. Cassini's cameras captured a giant plume blasting icy
particles into space.
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/home/index.cfm. The Cassini imaging
team homepage is at http://ciclops.org.
