NASA Does a Close Flyby Of Enceladus

This is one of the new pics of the surface that looks like drips:

This surprised astronomers…

One of the most unusual spottings in astronomy in the last century is within our very own solar system.

The moon Enceladus has been considered extremely unusual for a long time with some of the prior pics coming from 2004.  Now, things have gotten even stranger:

If you thought Saturn’s moon Enceladus couldn’t get any more bizzare — with its magnificent plumes, crazy tiger-stripe-like fissures and global subsurface salty ocean — think again. New images of this moon’s northern region just in from the Cassini spacecraft show surprising and perplexing features: a tortured surface where craters look like they are melting, and fractures that cut straight across the landscape.

Here is one statement from a NASA engineer about this unusual and elusive moon!

“We’ve been puzzling over Enceladus’ south pole for so long, time to be puzzled by the north Sarah Milkovich, who formerly worked on the Cassini mission.

This is when they expect more pics:

Then another flyby — Cassini’s final scheduled close flyby of Enceladus — on Dec. 19 will examine how much heat is coming from the moon’s interior from an altitude of 4,999 kilometers (3,106 miles).

And this video shows some graphics and simulations of the mission.  One of the commenters on the thread had this to say:

Absolutely fascinating! I just don’t understand what drove three individuals to down-vote this video. But I could hazard a guess.

That is too cool and the comments are pretty inquisitive on the video thread.

We’re looking forward to more data from Cassini and will keep you posted on updates!
thanks to universetoday.com for the great info
thanks to NASA for the pics