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Fresh Features On Enceladus
Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 23, 2006 This new image of Saturn's moon Enceladus in false color reveals subtle details not visible in natural color views. The now-familiar bluish appearance (in false color views) of the southern features called tiger stripes, and other relatively youthful fractures, almost certainly is attributable to larger grain sizes of relatively pure ice, compared to most surface materials. On the tiger stripes, this coarse-grained ice is seen in the colored deposits flanking the fractures as well as inside the fractures. On older fractures on other areas of Enceladus, the blue ice mostly occurs on the exposed wall scarps. The color difference across the moon's surface (a subtle gradation from upper left to lower right) could indicate broad-scale compositional differences across the moon's surface. It is also possible that the gradation in color is due to differences in the way the brightness of Enceladus changes toward the limb, a characteristic which is highly dependent on wavelength and viewing geometry. Terrain on the trailing hemisphere of Enceladus (505 kilometers, or 314 miles across) is seen here. North is up. The view was created by combining images taken using ultraviolet, green and infrared spectral filters, and then was processed to accentuate subtle color differences. The images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Jan. 17, 2006 at a distance of approximately 153,000 kilometers (95,000 miles) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 29 degrees. Image scale is 912 meters (2,994 feet) per pixel. Related Links Cassini at JPL Cassini Image Team
Rheas Wisps In Color
Pasadena CA (SPX) Feb 23, 2006Bright, wispy markings stretch across a region of darker terrain on Saturn's moon Rhea. In this extreme false-color view, the roughly north-south fractures occur within strips of material (which appear greenish here) that are a different color from the surrounding cratered landscape. |
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