Enceladus Saturn Moon
by Weston Westmoreland
Title
Enceladus Saturn Moon
Artist
Weston Westmoreland
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, enhanced.
A masterpiece of deep time and wrenching gravity, the tortured surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus and its fascinating ongoing geologic activity tell the story of the ancient and present struggles of one tiny world. This is a story that is recounted by imaging scientists in a paper published in the journal Science on March 10, 2006.
The enhanced color view of Enceladus seen here is largely of the southern hemisphere and includes the south polar terrain at the bottom of the image.
Ancient craters remain somewhat pristine in some locales, but have clearly relaxed in others. Northward-trending fractures, likely caused by a change in the moon's rate of rotation and the consequent flattening of the moon's shape, rip across the southern hemisphere. The south polar terrain is marked by a striking set of `blue' fractures and encircled by a conspicuous and continuous chain of folds and ridges, testament to the forces within Enceladus that have yet to be silenced.
Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It is about a tenth of Titan, the largest. Enceladus is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it one of the most reflective bodies of the solar system. Consequently, its surface temperature at noon only reaches −324 °F, far colder than a light-absorbing body would be. Despite its small size, Enceladus has a wide range of surface features, ranging from old, heavily cratered regions to young, tectonically deformed terrains that formed as recently as 100 million years ago.
Enceladus is thought to hold a salt-water ocean beneath its frozen surface and is nowadays one of the most promising targets at finding life beyond earth.
Original image and text by NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute and Wikipedia, further image enhancements and post processing by Weston Westmoreland.
You can learn more about what drives me in my blog:
http://inspiringthoughtsandimages.com/
Uploaded
April 14th, 2017
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