Fly-by accomplished. On Wednesday, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft made its deepest dive ever through the spray of ice, vapour and salt erupting from the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus – and took incredible photos in the process.
The probe also took chemical data which, once analysed, will help us understand whether the global ocean hidden beneath a crust of ice is a good place for life. But the raw pictures it snapped are already available.
First is a close-up of the alien, almost reptilian surface of Enceladus (above). As Cassini dived through the moon’s plume, it was going so fast that only the briefest of exposures were free of blurring.
These views of the surface, combined with a record of the thickness of the plume from the fly-by, should settle the question of whether the plume spurts from individual nozzles in the crust, or erupts sheet-like from cracks.
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