NASA Cassini spacecraft to take dip near space geyser

William Atkins
Tuesday, 11 March 2008 20:58

Science - Space

Enceladus is the sixth largest moon of Saturn. The moon orbits near the densest part of Saturn's diffuse E ring, its outermost ring. Enceladus is one of the major inner satellites of the planet Saturn.

The moon Enceladus orbits Saturn at an average distance of about 147,900 miles (238,000 kilometers) from its center and at a distance of about 111,800 miles (180,000 kilometers) from the top of its cloud layer.

Earlier, in 2005, Cassini’s instruments found that these plumes sprouting out from active geysers on the surface of Enceladus rush out at about a speed of 800 miles per hour and to a distance of about three times the radius of the moon, which is about 155 miles (252 kilometers)--or roughly about 466 miles (750 kilometers) off the moon’s surface.

The plumes appear to provide icy materials for Saturn’s E ring.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a joint effort between the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Union's European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI).

For additional information about Cassini-Huygens, please go to: “Cassini: Unlocking Saturn’s Secrets”

This article is based on the NASA article “Cassini spacecraft to dive into water plume of Saturn moon”