NASA Cassini Image: Boulder-Strewn Surface of Enceladus Wide Angle Camera View

This wide-angle view is one of the highest resolution images yet acquired by Cassini and shows what appears to be a geologically youthful, tectonically fractured terrain.

A higher resolution, narrow-angle view of the center of the terrain shown here is available (see PIA06252 ), as well as a comparison view showing the position of the narrow-angle image within this image (see PIA06250 ).

The image was taken during Cassini’s very close flyby of Enceladus on July14, 2005, from a distance of approximately 208 kilometers (129 miles) above Enceladus. Resolution in the image is about 37 meters (121 feet) per pixel. The image’s contrast has been enhanced to improve the visibility of surface features.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute