Images from Cassini's Nov. 2009 Enceladus Flyby

Bursting at the Seams

Dramatic plumes, both large and small, spray water ice out from many locations along the famed "tiger stripes" near the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The tiger stripes are fissures that spray icy particles, water vapor and organic compounds.

› Full image and caption Baghdad Sulcus in 3-D

This anaglyph made from images captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows a dramatic, 3-D view of one of the deep fractures nicknamed "tiger stripes" on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The fractures, which are located near the moon’s south pole, spray jets of water ice.

› Full image and caption New to Old on Enceladus

This mosaic features the highest resolution data yet captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft of the leading, or western, hemisphere of Saturn's moon Enceladus. It shows where the newly created terrain of this geologically active moon's south polar region meets older, crater-filled terrain further north.

› Full image and caption Enceladan Tectonics

This mosaic shows extraordinary details of tectonic deformation in the fractured south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus, where jets of water ice spray outward to form Saturn's E ring. The images were captured by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

› Full image and caption Baghdad Sulcus in Context

This wide-angle image shows the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus and outlines the area covered by the high-resolution mosaic combining data from the imaging science subsystem and composite infrared spectrometer aboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

› Full image and caption Enceladus' Leading Hemisphere

NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows a new view of Saturn's moon Enceladus in a whole-disk mosaic of the geologically active moon's leading, or western, hemisphere.

› Full image and caption Zooming In On Heat at Baghdad Sulcus

The right-hand image shows a dramatically improved view of heat radiation from a warm fissure near the south pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus. It was obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during its Nov. 21, 2009, flyby of that moon.

› Full image and caption Peaceful Portrait

At first glance, this scene simply shows the bright crescent of Saturn's moon Enceladus at top right, composed against the stability of its parent planet resting at the bottom left. But a closer look at the center of the image reveals a dramatic surprise: plumes of water ice spew out from the famed fractures known as "tiger stripes" near the south pole of the moon.

› Full image and caption