mmcirvin: (Default)
mmcirvin ([personal profile] mmcirvin) wrote2005-01-18 10:55 pm

Enceladus in pseudo-color

I predict that we're going to be hearing many more comparisons between Enceladus and Europa in coming months:


Crescent Enceladus, showing no craters and many strange ridges; dark area lit by Saturn-light

This is another IR/green/UV pseudo-color picture; in visible light the icy surface would probably just be white (Enceladus is actually one of the whitest objects in the solar system). The light on the night side is all Saturn-shine.

The whole daylight area is covered by strange, roughly parallel ridges. Voyager 2 photographed the other side, which has more craters (though still not that many, by Saturnian moon standards) and what look like tectonic plate boundaries.