Enceladus: Not dead yet

A dramatic image of Saturn's sixth-largest moon, Enceladus, made on a close flyby by NASA's Cassini spacecraft earlier this month.

NASA

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A dramatic image of Saturn's sixth-largest moon, Enceladus, made on a close flyby by NASA's Cassini spacecraft earlier this month. The new image spectacularly shows a deep chasm and, more generally, the sheer diversity of landforms on this little moon.  The essential paradox is that such a small moon should be a uniform moonscape of craters; the diversity is one sign of ongoing geological activity, which is puzzling because such a small body should be geologically dead. Our December 2008 issue will include a feature on Enceladus by Carolyn Porco, head of the Cassini imaging team.

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