Explanation: Do underground oceans vent through canyons on Saturn's moon Enceladus? Long features dubbed tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space, creating a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon's South Pole and creating Saturn's mysterious E-ring. Evidence for this has come from the robot Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. Pictured here, a high resolution image of Enceladus is shown from a close flyby. The unusual surface features dubbed tiger stripes are visible in false-color blue. Why Enceladus is active remains a mystery, as the neighboring moon Mimas, approximately the same size, appears quite dead. An analysis of ejected ice grains has yielded evidence that complex organic molecules exist inside Enceladus. These large carbon-rich molecules bolster -- but do not prove -- that oceans under Enceladus' surface could contain life.

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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

Publikacii s klyuchevymi slovami: Enceladus - Encelad Publikacii so slovami: Enceladus - Encelad
Sm. takzhe: Polumesyac Encelada Encelad, osveshennyi Saturnom Encelad v infrakrasnom svete Svezhie "tigrovye polosy" na sputnike Saturna Encelade Saturn, Titan, kol'ca i dymka Siluet Encelada Fontany nad Enceladom: svidetel'stvo vozmozhnosti zhizni Vse publikacii na tu zhe temu >>