Enceladus is a small moon of Saturn with a highly reflective surface and blue “tiger stripe” formations. It was little known until the Voyager spacecrafts explored Saturn and its moons, revealing its geologically active nature and contribution to Saturn’s E-ring. Enceladus has a highly variable surface geography and is thought to be the source of cryovolcanic activity. It has numerous tectonic features and is comparable in size to the states of Arizona or Colorado.
Enceladus is the sixth largest moon of Saturn. It is distinctive for its 100% albedo, meaning that it reflects nearly all incoming light and is nearly white in appearance, with blue “tiger stripe” formations. Some of the most fantastic space photography focuses on Enceladus in the rings of Saturn. Enceladus takes its name from the homonymous Titan of Greek mythology.
Enceladus is small: 504 km in diameter. It is small enough to vary in its sphericity by a factor of a few percentage points; is a flattened ellipsoid. Until the spaceships Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 made flybys of Saturn, very little was known about Enceladus as it showed up simply as a dot on the most powerful telescopes. When they flew and took photos and measurements, the scientists gained a wealth of information about Enceladus and Saturn’s other moons. Most notably, some of Enceladus’ plains were barely cratered.
Enceladus has a moon with highly variable surface geography in age, some areas as young as 100 million years old. Enceladus is geologically active, as discovered by the recent Cassini spacecraft which explored Saturn and the moons in the early to mid-2000s. A plume of water, heat emanating from the planet, and an almost complete lack of craters were observed in the south pole region, showing geological activity. As for the source of cryovolcanism, deep, hot rocks created by tidal heating are thought to feed small underground pockets of water, which in turn release their pressure to the surface via the path of least resistance.
Enceladus is probably the main source of particles for Saturn’s outermost ring, the dusty and diffuse E-ring. This dust is likely contributed by cryovolcanic activity on Enceladus. Since its escape velocity is only 866 km/h, a certain percentage of Enceladus’ grip during the most intense cryomagma eruptions escapes. This was observed in the images of Enceladus taken with the spacecraft.
In size, Enceladus is comparable to the states of Arizona or Colorado. It has numerous tectonic features originally discovered by Voyager 2, including scarps, ridges, troughs, and furrows. Some rifts on its surface are up to 200 km long, 5-10 km wide and one km deep.
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