Johns Hopkins University (JHU) continues to pad its space community résumé with their interactive map, “The map of the observable Universe”, that takes viewers on a 13.7-billion-year-old tour of the cosmos from the present to the moments after the Big Bang. While JHU is responsible for creating the site, additional contributions were made by NASA, the European Space Agency, the National Science Foundation, and the Sloan Foundation.
New research from the up-close Grand Finale orbits of NASA’s Cassini mission shows a surprisingly powerful interaction of plasma waves moving from Saturn to its moon Enceladus. Researchers converted the recording of plasma waves into a “whooshing” audio file that we can hear -- in the same way a radio translates electromagnetic waves into music. Much like air or water, plasma (the fourth state of matter) generates waves to carry energy. The recording was captured by the Radio Plasma Wave Science (RPWS) instrument Sept. 2, 2017, two weeks before Cassini was deliberately plunged into the atmosphere of Saturn. For more information, visit: Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Iowa
In 2015, the unmanned spacecraft Cassini captured one of the most intriguing images of Saturn’s mysterious moon, Enceladus. DCODE the secrets behind this tiny ball of ice that could contain the ingredients necessary for life, in this fascinating 2016 series – Space’s Deepest Secrets.
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After nearly 20 years, hundreds of thousands of photos, hundreds of flybys, and thousands of scientific papers, it’s time to say goodbye to Cassini. In this special video, we team up with David Joseph Wesley to say farewell to one of the most important scientific instruments humanity has ever built. Caption author (Portuguese) Cícero K Caption authors (Spanish) cesardalealbo G M Sergio Alonso Caption author (Russian) Дмитрий Наумов Caption author (Greek) Terring7 Category Science & Technology License Standard YouTube License
Published on Oct 27, 2015 Visit for more. NASA's Cassini Spacecraft is about to make a daring plunge through one of the plumes emerging from Saturn's moon Enceladus. Category Science & Technology License Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed) Remix this video Source videos View attributions
NASA's Cassini spacecraft's Grand Finale orbits found a powerful interaction of plasma waves moving from Saturn to its rings and its moon Enceladus. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Artist's rendering of possible hydrothermal activity that may be taking place on and under the seafloor of Enceladus. Image Credit: NASA/JPL
Cassini narrow-angle camera image looking across the south pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus on November 30th, 2010, 1.4 years after southern autumnal equinox. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute Credit:
The “tiger stripes” of Enceladus, as pictured by the Cassini space probe. Credit: NASA/JPL/ESA
Hydrothermal activity in Enceladus’ core and the rise of organic-rich bubbles. Credit and Copyright: ESA; F. Postberg et al (2018)
Image: The graphic shows water from the ocean circulating through the seafloor, where it is heated and interacts chemically with the rock. This warm water, laden with minerals and dissolved gases (including hydrogen and possibly methane) then pours into the ocean creating chimney-like vents. The hydrogen measurements were made using Cassini’s Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer, or INMS, instrument, which sniffs gases to determine their composition. The finding is an independent line of evidence that hydrothermal activity is taking place in the Enceladus ocean. Previous results from Cassini’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer instrument, published in March 2015, suggested hot water is interacting with rock beneath the ocean; the new findings support that conclusion and indicate that the rock is reduced in its geochemistry. With the discovery of hydrogen gas, scientists can now conclude that there is a source of chemical free energy in Enceladus’ ocean. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Southwest Research Institute.
The “Tiger Stripes” of Enceladus, as pictured by the Cassini space probe. Credit: NASA/JPL/ESA
Possible spectroscopy results from one of Europa’s water plumes. This is an example of the data the Webb telescope could return. Credit: NASA-GSFC/SVS, Hubble Space Telescope, Stefanie Milam, Geronimo Villanueva Credit: NASA/JPL/ESA
Cassini�s view down into a jetting �tiger stripe� in August 2010. Credit: NASA
Ever since the Cassini space probe conducted its first flyby of Enceladus in 2005,
the strange Saturnian moon has provided us with a treasure trove of images and scientific wonders.
These include the jets of icy water vapor periodically bursting from its south pole, the possibility of an interior ocean �
which may even harbor life � and the strange green-blue stripes located around the south pole.
Artist�s impression of the Cassini spacecraft making a close pass by Saturn�s inner moon Enceladus
to study plumes from geysers that erupt from giant fissures in the moon�s southern polar region. Copyright 2008 Karl Kofoed/NASA.
Parcheta�s research recently attracted the attention of visitors to National Geographic�s website,
who voted her #2 in a list of �great explorers� on the Expedition Granted campaign.
Hot springs on Saturn's icy moon Enceladus suggest that the floor of the satellite's subsurface ocean
may be home to near-boiling temperatures, researchers say.
This finding is the first evidence of active hydrothermal vents beyond the oceans of Earth.
Moreover, conditions deep under the icy surface of Enceladus could be similar to those that gave rise
to the first life on Earth, the researchers reported in the new study.
Craters near Enceladus’ north pole region appear to be ‘melting’ into each other.
Image taken by Cassini spacecraft on October 14, 2015. Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
Craters and a possible straight fracture line mar the surface of Enceladus in this raw image
from the Cassini spacecraft taken on October 14, 2015.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
Craters and fractures dot the landscape of the northern region of Enceladus in this
raw image from the Cassini spacecraft taken on October 14, 2015.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute.
A complex region of craters and fractures near the north polar region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
Image from Cassini spacecraft taken on October 14, 2015.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
A beautiful view of the night side of a crescent Enceladus, lovingly lit by Saturnshine.
This was captured by the Cassini spacecraft during a close pass on Oct. 14, 2015.
The 6.5-mile-wide Bahman cater is visible near the center.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute, image editing by Jason Major.
Enceladus looms into the view of Cassini in this unprocessed Oct 28th image.
Image credit: NASA/JPL Caltech/Space Science Institute
Enceladus vs the rings of Saturn. Image credit: NASA/JPL Caltech/Space Science Institute
Ice geysers ahead, in this Oct 28th view from Cassini.
Image credit: NASA/JPL Caltech/Space Science Institute
A closeup view of the icy terrain of the southern polar region of Enceladus from this weeks’ flyby.
Image credit: NASA/JPL Caltech/Space Science Institute
A high-resolution capture of Enceladus released this weekend by the Cassini team.
The spacecraft was about 60,000 miles (96,000 kilometers) out when this image was taken.
You can see the stark contract of the moon’s fractured cantaloupe terrain, versus craters in the opposite hemisphere imaged.
Credit: NASA/JPL-CalTech/Space Science Institute
NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this view of Saturn's moon Enceladus that shows wrinkled plains
that are remarkably youthful in appearance, being generally free of large impact craters. When viewed with north pointing up, as in this image, the day-night boundary line (or terminator)
cuts diagonally across Enceladus, with Saturn approaching its northern summer solstice.
The lit portion on all of Saturn's large, icy moons, including Enceladus
(313 miles or 504 kilometers across) and Saturn itself, is now centered on their northern hemispheres.
This change of season, coupled with a new spacecraft trajectory, has progressively revealed new terrains
compared to when Cassini arrived in 2004 (see PIA06547), when the southern hemisphere was more illuminated.
Dramatic plumes, both large and small, spray water ice out from many locations along the famed “tiger stripes” near the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Tiger stripes on the south pole of Enceladus. The region studied is indicated by the coloured band. NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute; Acknowledgement: A. Lucas
This artist's concept shows a glowing patch of ultraviolet light near Saturn's north pole that occurs at the "footprint"
of the magnetic connection between Saturn and its moon Enceladus. The footprint and magnetic field lines are not visible to the naked eye,
but were detected by the ultraviolet imaging spectrograph and the fields and particles instruments on NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
The footprint, newly discovered by Cassini, marks the presence of an electrical circuit that connects Saturn with Enceladus and
accelerates electrons and ions along the magnetic field lines. In this image, the footprint is in the white box marked on Saturn,
with the magnetic field lines in white and purple.
As soon as the Cassini-Huygens mission arrived the Saturn system in 2004, it began to send back a number of startling discoveries. One of the biggest was the discovery of plume activity around the southern polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus’, which appears to be the result of geothermal activity and an ocean in the moon’s interior. This naturally gave rise to a debate about whether or not this interior ocean could support life.
Artist’s rendering of possible hydrothermal activity that may be taking place on and under the seafloor of Enceladus. Image Credit: NASA/JPL
Cassini narrow-angle camera image looking across the south pole of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus on November 30th, 2010, 1.4 years after southern autumnal equinox. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute Credit:
Image: “Snow on Enceladus.” Credit: David Hardy. The discovery of subsurface oceans in the icy moons of Europa and Enceladus has increased interest in the exploration of these moons. The logic of the mantra “Follow the water” implies that there may be extant life in these oceans, most excitingly from a unique genesis at hypothesized ocean hot vents that release the tidal heat. The Europa Clipper is one such Probe.
Image. Enceladus cross-section, showing the different potential components of the soup and the plumes. IOM stands for insoluble organic matter, which is taken to be synonymous with nondispersive organic matter. Such polymeric compounds can still be carried in the plume as small particles detached from insoluble organic layers at the top of the water layer. Lipid in water alludes to monomers and aggregates such as micelles and vesicles. Organic in water is dispersed, for example as a microemulsion. Inspired by the data in Postberg et al. (2018).
Figure 2. From soup to protocells, delineating the underpinnings of two different models, RNA First (RF, top) and Lipid First (LF, bottom). In RF, specific monomers are singled out from a heterogeneous chemical mixture and undergo polymerization, culminating in the emergence of a self-replicating polymer. This is then enclosed in a lipid bilayer, leading to protocells capable of selection and evolution. In LF, a large variety of amphiphiles spontaneously generates a plethora of assemblies, for example, micelles. The GARD model then predicts that very specific micellar compositions establish a mutually catalytic network, which may exhibit homeostatic growth. This, when followed by fission events, constitutes a reproduction system, capable of selection and evolution (see ‘‘How do lipids reproduce?’’ Section 8.4 and Lancet et al. [2018]). Subsequent prolonged evolution may lead to the emergence of RNA, proteins, and metabolism (See Section 8.5, ‘‘How would lipids beget full-fledged protocells’’ and Lancet et al. [2018] Section 11.1). Caption source: Kahana et al.
Image: This illustration shows how newly discovered organic compounds — the ingredients of amino acids — were detected by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in the ice grains emitted from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Powerful hydrothermal vents eject material from Enceladus’ core into the moon’s massive subsurface ocean. After mixing with the water, the material is released into space as water vapor and ice grains. Condensed onto the ice grains are nitrogen- and oxygen-bearing organic compounds. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Image: With Enceladus nearly in front of the Sun from Cassini’s viewpoint, its icy jets become clearly visible against the background. The view here is roughly perpendicular to the direction of the linear “tiger stripe” fractures, or sulci, from which the jets emanate. The jets here provide the extra glow at the bottom of the moon. The general brightness of the sky around the moon is the diffuse glow of Saturn’s E ring, which is an end product of the jets’ material being spread into a torus, or doughnut shape, around Saturn. North on Enceladus (505 kilometers, or 314 miles across) is up and rotated 20 degrees to the left. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
“We knew very little about the satellites in those days. Enceladus looked particularly good. It was known to have a density of .618, so it clearly had to be made of ice plus hydrocarbons, really light things; which were what you need both for biology and for propellant, so you could imagine growing your vegetables there. Five-one-thousandths g on Enceladus is a very gentle gravity, just enough so that you won’t jump off.”
Image: Image: Mosaic of the surface of Enceladus captured by Cassini on 9th October 2008 from an altitude of 25 kilometres. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute. Mosaic of the surface of Enceladus captured by Cassini on 9th October 2008 from an altitude of 25 kilometres. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.
Image: This is Figure 1 from the precis of Dr. Le Gail’s presentation. Caption: Averaged 2.2-cm disk-integrated radar albedos of Saturn’s major satellites. The error bars show the dispersion of the dataset for each satellite. Credit: Alice Le Gail.
The presentation is Le Gail et al., “Saturn’s inner moons: why are they so radar-bright?” in EPSC Abstracts Vol. 13, EPSC-DPS 2019-454-2, 2019 EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019
Saturn’s E-ring is situated between the orbits of Mimas and Titan. It’s made up of material ejected from geysers on Enceladus that turns to snow. Some of that snow falls on Mimas and Tethys. Image Credits left Panel: Image Credit: (L) By NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute – Public Domain, Image Credits Right Panel: Image Credit: (R) By NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute – Public Domain,
Even though the Cassini mission at Saturn ended nearly four years ago,(as of August 2021) data from the spacecraft still keeps scientists busy. And the latest research using Cassini’s wealth of data might be the most enticing yet.
n 2005 Cassini discovered jets of water vapor and ice erupting form the surface of Enceladus. The water could be from an subsurface sea. Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA
Artist rendering showing an interior cross-section of the crust of Enceladus, which shows how hydrothermal activity may be causing the plumes of water at the moon’s surface. Credits: NASA-GSFC/SVS, NASA/JPL-Caltech/Southwest Research Institute
Artist’s conception of the Cassini spacecraft flying amid geysers on Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. Credit: Karl Kofoed / NASA What a parting gift the Cassini mission gave us. Below is a movie sequence of images, garnered from the final dedicated observation of the Enceladus’ geysers by the imitable Cassini spacecraft.
This movie sequence of images is from the last dedicated observation of the Enceladus plume by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on August 28, 2017. The images were obtained over approximately 14 hours. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
In 2005 Cassini discovered jets of water vapor and ice erupting form the surface of Enceladus. The water could be from an subsurface sea. Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA
Cassini captured this image of Enceladus with Saturn’s rings. The vapor plumes are clearly visible at the south polar region. Image: NASA/ JPL-CalTech
Artist concept of the Moonraker mission. Credit – Mousis et al.
Did you hear that NASA just announced an important discovery in the quest to find life on other places in the Solar System? In this quick episode, Fraser details what NASA found on Enceladus and Europa, and what it means for the search for life. Follow us on Twitter: @universetoday Like us on Facebook: Instagram - Support us at:Support us at: Instagram - Team: Fraser Cain - @fcain / frasercain@gmail.com /Karla Thompson - @karlaii Chad Weber -
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Beneath its icy surface, Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus has many surprises: a reservoir of liquid water, organic chemical compounds, and hydrothermal vents. Find out what you need to know about Enceladus, an ocean world which may have conditions friendly to life.
Four key objectives of the proposed AXE mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Just getting to Enceladus would be a challenge. Credit: Seaton, et al
The Cassini spacecraft captured this image of cryovolcanic plumes erupting from Enceladus' ice-capped ocean. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/CalTech
How do we plan a mission that can go to Enceladus and grab a sample of its plumes? How fast does it need to go? Will it bring samples to Earth or analyse them on the spacecraft? Figuring out the answers with Professor Mark Burchell from the University of Kent. 📜 Hypervelocity impact induced light flash experiments on single and dual layer Kapton targets to develop a time of flight space dust and debris detector 👉 We Must Go Back To Enceladus! Here's Why Support us at:Support us at: Patreon 📚 Suggest books in the book club: 00:00 Intro 02:07 Firing tardigrades from a gun 05:32 Enceladus 13:14 How fast can we go 21:07 Optimal mission to Enceladus 32:35 Exploring Io 41:43 Sampling interstellar objects 47:55 Dust in interstellar space 51:19 Current obsessions 01:01:04 Final thoughts and more interviews 📰 EMAIL NEWSLETTER Read by 70,000 people every Friday. Written by Fraser. No ads. Subscribe for Free:Sign up to my weekly email newsletter: For Free 🎧 PODCASTS Universe Today: Astronomy Cast: 🚀 OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA: ════════════════════════════════════ Frasiser Cain's Twitter: Universetoday's Twitter: Facebook: Instagram: Twitch: 📩 CONTACT FRASER via E-mail ⚖️ LICENSE Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Artist rendering showing an interior cross-section of the crust of Enceladus, which shows how hydrothermal activity may be causing the plumes of water at the moon’s surface. Credits: NASA-GSFC/SVS, NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI