In April, NASA’s robotic probe Cassini attracted widespread media coverage as it neared the end of its expedition of Saturn and its moons. While NASA celebrates the remarkable success of Cassini, it is hard not to look towards the future and ask, ‘what’s next?’
Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn that could host life, may have tipped over long ago.
You won’t need sunblock, but you’ll definitely want a blanket or two
Great news for Cassini fans: The NASA spacecraft sent word that it successfully completed its first pass through the uncharted territory between Saturn and its rings late Wednesday.
Enceladus is ripe for life. In one final pass through the icy moon’s liquid plumes, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft found molecular hydrogen, which indicates favourable conditions for life in Enceladus’s subsurface sea.
Over the past decade, the international Cassini mission has revealed intense activity at the southern pole of Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus, with warm fractures venting water-rich jets that hint at an underground sea. A new study, based on microwave observations of this region, shows that the moon is warmer than expected just a few metres below its icy surface. This suggests that heat is produced over a broad area in this polar region and transported under the crust, and that Enceladus’ reservoir of liquid water might be lurking only a few kilometres beneath.
Astronomers have long known that Pan, one of Saturn’s innermost moons, has an odd look.
Sunlight truly has come to Saturn’s north pole. The whole northern region is bathed in sunlight in this view from late 2016, feeble though the light may be at Saturn’s distant domain in the solar system.
Saturn’s potato-shaped moon Prometheus is shown in this close-up from Cassini.
Saturn’s moon, Mimas, is on a crash course through Saturn’s rings as it gets closer to the planet’s surface.
