LOS ANGELES (AP) - The
international Cassini spacecraft collected science data on mysterious geysers
spewing from Saturn's moon Enceladus and recorded new images of its surface
during a close flyby, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Thursday.
The pass
Wednesday brought Cassini as close as 30 miles to the surface of the moon.
It went through the icy geysers at 32,000 mph and an altitude of 120 miles, the
lab said.
It's hoped that instrument
data on density, size, composition and speed of plume particles will provide
clues to whether there's a water ocean or organics inside the frozen moon. The geysers
spew water vapor from fractures in the moon's south pole.
New pictures taken by
Cassini show the surface of the north polar region is much older than the
southern hemisphere and is pitted with craters, the lab said.
Cassini imaging scientist
Carolyn Porco said the images provide an important comparison for "working out
the moon's obviously complex geological history.''
Porco, of the Space Science
Institute in Boulder, Colo., said the next big step will be getting detailed
images of the surface sources of the plumes during a low-altitude flyby this
summer.
The lab said that during
Wednesday's flyby, one of Cassini's instruments, the Cosmic Dust Analyzer, had
an unexplained software problem that prevented it from collecting data during
closest approach, but it did collect data before and after. Other instruments
functioned properly, it said.
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