Astronomy News
Dr. Neal Sumerlin keeps us abreast of happenings in the night sky and the progress of the new Belk Astronomical Observatory.
Blogs we recommend
Other Posts:
Describing the Indescribable (07/22/2009)
Total Solar Eclipse in July (06/07/2009)
Other Earths (05/20/2009)
Save Those Old Computers! (04/13/2009)
Play With Pictures from Mars! (04/13/2009)
Saturn in 2009 (04/13/2009)
The New Worlds (02/04/2009)
Christmas at the Moon (12/10/2008)
Potpourri of Space News (12/10/2008)
Night Sky Happenings (11/17/2008)
Power Sources for Space Probes (11/17/2008)
R.I.P., Mars Phoenix Lander (11/17/2008)
Pictures of Planets (11/17/2008)
Constellations (09/22/2008)
Happy Equinox Day! (09/22/2008)
More News from Mars (06/04/2008)
Search (but no rescue) on Mars (05/20/2008)
We lose a friend (05/03/2008)
Quiz winner! (04/29/2008)
Seeing and Patience (04/22/2008)
The World at Night (03/31/2008)
New Stars that are Really Old (03/14/2008)
Latest From Planetary Spacecraft (03/14/2008)
Lunar Eclipse Update (02/18/2008)
Aiming a Telescope (02/18/2008)
Observatory Update (02/04/2008)
Venus and Jupiter in the Morning (02/04/2008)
Total Lunar Eclipse (02/04/2008)
Messenger Mission to Mercury (02/04/2008)
Ice Geysers of Enceladus
Posted on 09/22/2008The Cassini spacecraft continues in orbit around Saturn, and continues to make close flybys of some of its fascinating moons. One such is Enceladus, an ice ball only a few hundred miles across, but which contains actively erupting cryovolcanoes, which erupt ice rather than lava. On August 11, Cassini swooped to within 30 miles of Enceladus' surface to snap several images, including this one from http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/moons/images/PIA11113-br500.jpg
The yellow circles indicate the source locations for the icy jets seen in earlier, more distant imaging. On October 9, the spacecraft will fly even closer (15.5 miles above the surface) for some even higher-resolution images.