Parent and "Child"With Saturn shining bright white in the background, the smooth, lighted edge of the moon Enceladus is interrupted by geysers spewing from the south pole in a newly released visible-light picture from NASA's Cassini orbiter.

The picture is among several new shots of Enceladus snapped during a flyby in November 2009. During the visit, Cassini spotted a never-before-seen population of plumes, confirming researchers' predictions that Enceladus's jets of watery particles vary in number and intensity over time.

(Related: "'Geyser' Moon Sprinkles Salt on Saturn's Rings.")

"With each Cassini flyby, we learn more about [Enceladus's] extreme activity and what makes this strange moon tick," Bob Pappalardo, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.

Image courtesy NASA/JPL/SSI

Space Pictures: New Geysers Seen on Saturn Moon

New pictures reveal an unknown population of plumes on Saturn's moon Enceladus—and the most detailed heat maps yet of the fissures that spawn the watery jets.

February 25, 2010