<p>Enceladus hovers above Saturn’s rings in this image from October 28. Water erupting from the moon actually creates one of the Saturn’s rings, known as the E ring.</p>

Saturnian Ringscape

Enceladus hovers above Saturn’s rings in this image from October 28. Water erupting from the moon actually creates one of the Saturn’s rings, known as the E ring.

Photograph by NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Pictures Give Raw Look at South Pole of Saturn Moon

The Cassini spacecraft dived into a giant geyser on the south pole of Enceladus.

The first raw images have made it back to Earth from the Cassini spacecraft's deepest dive ever into a jet on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus.

On Wednesday, Cassini swooped low over the small moon’s south pole, where dozens of geysers are continually hurling salty water into space. Those geysers are powered by a global ocean buried beneath the moon’s icy crust—an ocean that’s considered one of the prime places to look for life beyond Earth.

The south pole flyover, which brought Cassini to within 30 miles of the moon’s surface, lasted for all of 30 seconds. During that time, the spacecraft flew through one of the Enceladian plumes and collected samples of the geyser-water, which scientists already know

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