A brightly reflective Enceladus appears
before Saturn's rings, while the planet's larger moon Titan looms in the
distance.
Jets of water ice and vapor emanating from
the south pole of Enceladus, which hint at subsurface sea rich in organics, and
liquid hydrocarbons ponding on the surface on the surface of Titan make these
two of the most fascinating moons in the Saturnian system.
Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers
across) is in the center of the image. Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers
across) glows faintly in the background beyond the rings. This view looks
toward the anti-Saturn side of Enceladus and the Saturn-facing side of Titan.
The northern, sunlit side of the rings is seen from just above the ringplane.
The image was taken in visible green
light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on March 12, 2012. The
view was acquired at a distance of approximately 600,000 miles (1 million
kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle
of 36 degrees. Image scale is 4 miles (6 kilometers) per pixel on Enceladus.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space
Science Institute
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