<p>Enceladus hovers above this side view of Saturn's rings. The Cassini mission is exploring this icy moon through a series of flybys.</p>
Enceladus hovers above this side view of Saturn's rings. The Cassini mission is exploring this icy moon through a series of flybys.
NASA Is Sending a Spacecraft Deep Inside an Alien Geyser
Flying just 30 miles above a massive plume of water erupting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, the Cassini probe will gather the best samples ever from an ocean beyond Earth.
The Cassini spacecraft takes its deepest plunge yet into an alien ocean on Wednesday.
Or, more specifically, the ocean comes to Cassini, as the probe flies through a huge icy plume near the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Stretching thousands of kilometers into space, the plume is the creation of at least 101 geysers of water vapor and ice, erupting from a formation of fissures known as “tiger stripes.”
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