Image: Enceladus lit by the sun

Image: Enceladus lit by the sun
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Enceladus is a world divided. To the north, the terrain is covered in impact craters, much like other icy moons. But to the south, the record of impact cratering is much more sparse, and instead the land is covered in fractures, ropy or hummocky terrain and long, linear features.

Lit terrain seen here is on the trailing side of Enceladus. North on Enceladus is up. The image was taken in visible green light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 27, 2015.

The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 70,000 miles (112,000 kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 25 degrees. Image scale is 0.4 miles (0.7 kilometers) per pixel.

Provided by NASA

Citation: Image: Enceladus lit by the sun (2015, October 27) retrieved 17 April 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2015-10-image-enceladus-lit-sun.html
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