NASA has released the most recent raw images of Saturn's moon Enceladus, from the Cassini spacecraft's extended mission to the planet with its satellites.
The images illustrate the moon's rippling terrain in remarkable clarity.
Cassini started transmitting uncalibrated temperature data and images through a flyby on 21 November.
The data will help out scientists create a highly detailed mosaic image of the southern part of the moon's Saturn-facing hemisphere, also a thermal map.
This thermal map will help out researchers to study the long fractures in the south polar region of the moon's surface and it have been dubbed "tiger stripes" and are warmer than the rest of the surface.
Scientists are particularly fascinated in these fissures because they spew out jets of water vapour, and other particles, in plumes that get to hundreds of kilometers above the surface.
This flyby was scient
ists' last glance at the tiger stripes previous to the South Pole fades into the darkness of winter for lots of years.
Cassini has concluded its initial four-year mission to explore Saturn in June 2008.
However the spacecraft is still functioning so well, it was reprogrammed to work ultimately on the Cassini Equinox Mission.
The extended mission will end until late 2010. It was named after Saturn's equinox, which occurred in August 2009 - as soon as the sun shone directly on the equator, illuminating the northern hemisphere along with the rings northern face.
Working overtime
Saturn's orbit is so huge that Equinox happens only once every 15 Earth years.
Cassini is now ongoing to observe seasonal changes brought about by the changing sun angle on Saturn, its rings also its moons.
"These first raw images are amazing, and paint an even more fascinating picture of Enceladus," added Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, US.
"The Cassini teams will be delving into the data to better understand the mechanism of this bizarre, active moon."
This was the eighth targeted flyby of Enceladus, also brought Cassini to within about 1,000 miles (1,600km) of the moon's surface.
Cassini is now cruising to Rhea, another of the planet's moons.
The images illustrate the moon's rippling terrain in remarkable clarity.
Cassini started transmitting uncalibrated temperature data and images through a flyby on 21 November.
The data will help out scientists create a highly detailed mosaic image of the southern part of the moon's Saturn-facing hemisphere, also a thermal map.
This thermal map will help out researchers to study the long fractures in the south polar region of the moon's surface and it have been dubbed "tiger stripes" and are warmer than the rest of the surface.
Scientists are particularly fascinated in these fissures because they spew out jets of water vapour, and other particles, in plumes that get to hundreds of kilometers above the surface.
This flyby was scient
ists' last glance at the tiger stripes previous to the South Pole fades into the darkness of winter for lots of years.Cassini has concluded its initial four-year mission to explore Saturn in June 2008.
However the spacecraft is still functioning so well, it was reprogrammed to work ultimately on the Cassini Equinox Mission.
The extended mission will end until late 2010. It was named after Saturn's equinox, which occurred in August 2009 - as soon as the sun shone directly on the equator, illuminating the northern hemisphere along with the rings northern face.
Working overtime
Saturn's orbit is so huge that Equinox happens only once every 15 Earth years.
Cassini is now ongoing to observe seasonal changes brought about by the changing sun angle on Saturn, its rings also its moons.
"These first raw images are amazing, and paint an even more fascinating picture of Enceladus," added Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, US.
"The Cassini teams will be delving into the data to better understand the mechanism of this bizarre, active moon."
This was the eighth targeted flyby of Enceladus, also brought Cassini to within about 1,000 miles (1,600km) of the moon's surface.
Cassini is now cruising to Rhea, another of the planet's moons.
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