This picture shows Enceladus. It is one of Saturn's moons. The picture is from the Cassini spacecraft. The moon's South Pole is towards the left side of the picture. Can you see the "Tiger Stripes" there?
Click on image for full size
Image courtesy NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
Enceladus
Saturn has
moons. Enceladus is one of them. Enceladus is the sixth
biggest moon of Saturn. The diameter of Enceladus is 505 km (314 miles).
Enceladus is very interesting. It is also very strange. It is made of ice.
There are many cracks
in the ice near the moon's South Pole. The South Pole of Enceladus is warmer
than the rest of the moon. That is very odd.
Have you heard of "Old Faithful" geyser in Yellowstone Park? It shoots
hot water and steam up into the air. Some scientists think there are geysers
on Enceladus. They shoot out cold water and ice crystals instead of hot
water and steam. The geysers are near the South Pole of Enceladus, where the
cracks are.
Some of the ice from the geysers falls back onto Enceladus. It covers the moon
with shiny, fresh ice. It reflects lots of light, like fresh snow does. Some
of the ice makes the atmosphere of Enceladus. Most of the atmosphere is on the
side near the geysers. Some of the ice from the geysers goes into space. It
makes one of the rings of Saturn! The orbit
of Enceladus is inside of a ring.
The name "Enceladus" is from Greek
mythology. Enceladus was a giant. He was one of the children of Gaia.
He fought against the Greek gods. A goddess named Athena killed him. He was
buried under a volcano!
You might also be interested in:
Saturn has // Call the moon count function defined in the document head print_moon_count('saturn'); moons. Many of those are tiny chunks of rock or ice only a few kilometers (miles) across. One of Saturn's
...more
Have you ever seen a picture of Saturn's rings? If you have ever seen a picture of Saturn, it's likely you saw its rings too! The rings are very pretty and many colors. They circle around the middle of
...more
Saturn has // Call the moon count function defined in the document head print_moon_count('saturn'); moons. Many of those are tiny chunks of rock or ice only a few kilometers (miles) across. One of Saturn's
...more
There's a lot of strange stuff going on at both the North and South Poles of Saturn. Two of Saturn's moons also have interesting polar regions. Let's take a look! The atmosphere and clouds are quite odd
...more
Titan is like other icy moons. Scientists want to know "how come Titan is the only one that has a big atmosphere?" Titan formed the same way other planets did, as shown in this picture. Where Titan formed,
...more
The air of Titan is a lot like the Earth's, except that it is very cold, from -330 degrees to -290 degrees! Like the Earth, there is a lot of Nitrogen and other complex molecules. There also may be an
...more
Pandora is a small moon of Saturn. It was discovered by S. Collins and others in 1980 from photos taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft. Pandora's name comes from Greek mythology. Pandora was the first woman,
...more
