Enceladus Mystery Terrain Gets Close-Up Observation From Cassini

First Posted: Jan 15, 2016 01:51 PM EST

After ten years, NASA's Cassini spacecraft has revisited a mysterious landscape during its last close flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus, according to a NASA report. When imaging scientists observed the images from a 2005 flyby, they noticed tiny dark spots, which had a strange nature.

These same features were observed again in a processed image, which is revealing new insights to the researchers. The spots are quite large and they appear to be dark protrusions of solid "bedrock" ice and ice blocks, which are distributed on and around the ridge that spreads across from North to South. The ice blocks' sizes range from dozens to hundreds of feet.

The North-to-South ridge appears as an icy flatiron (tilted, triangular outcroppings of rock) on Enceladus's surface. There are no winds on Enceladus that can swipe ice and snow particles, so solid ice blocks are most likely cleaned by a combination of downslope movement of particulates and sublimation, according to the researchers.

The image has a spatial scale of 220 feet (67 meters) per pixel at the center. The view was captured on Dec. 19, 2015 with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera.

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TagsSolar System, space, NASA, Cassini Spacecraft, Planet, Galaxy, astronomy, astronomical observations, Astronomers, Enceladus, Saturn, Moon, Ice, Exoplanets, Earth, Universe