See pic: NASA's Cassini captures varying characteristics of Saturn's rings and Enceladus

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been sending stunning images lately, of planet Saturn and its largest moon Enceladus, the last one being an image of it emanating a lustrous shine.

Now, NASA has released a pic that was taken by Cassini recently that captures Enceladus and Saturn's rings showing different characteristics, even though they are both made up of ice water.

NASA describes their varying characteristics, saying that the small ring particles are too tiny to retain internal heat and have no way to get warm, so they are frozen and geologically dead. Enceladus, on the other hand, is subject to forces that heat its interior to this very day. This results in its famous south polar water jets, which are just visible above the moon’s dark, southern limb, along with a sub-surface ocean.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on July 29, 2015, while the view was acquired at a distance of approximately 630,000 miles (1.0 million kilometers) from Enceladus and at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase angle of 155 degrees. Image scale is 4 miles (6 kilometers) per pixel.