An Archival Cassini View Reveals Enceladus’s Icy Plumes
NASA’s image feature revisits a Cassini photograph from 2009. Enceladus’s ice plumes, likely connected to an ocean beneath its frozen shell, appear beside Saturn’s rings and the faint moon Pandora.
EXPLAINER · Science
NASA’s November 5 image feature revisits a Cassini photograph of Enceladus taken on November 1, 2009. Sunlight falls from behind the moon, making ice plumes at its south pole visible against the dark background. The photograph is archival, rather than a newly captured view.
According to NASA, Cassini identified the plumes in 2005. The agency describes them as likely connected to an ocean below the moon’s ice shell. Escaping material also feeds Saturn’s faint outer E ring, linking the visible jets to the planet’s ring system.
Elsewhere in the frame, Saturn’s icy rings scatter sunlight toward Cassini’s cameras. Pandora appears faintly at the lower right; its night side is illuminated by light reflected from Saturn. The scene brings together the moon’s plumes, the rings and another small Saturnian moon.
Cassini’s mission ended on September 15, 2017. NASA’s current image feature presents an observation from that earlier mission, not a new spacecraft measurement or a newly announced discovery.
Archival image: Archival Cassini view of Enceladus, Saturn’s rings and Pandora, captured November 1, 2009. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute. Original image record · NASA editorial-use policy. No NASA endorsement is implied.
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This source-based explainer was prepared with AI assistance and checked against the linked NASA material. It does not include interviews or independent field reporting. Automated consistency checks cannot guarantee the absence of errors.