Enceladus is the brightest moon of Saturn – and of the entire solar system – and adorns the ringed planet as one more jewel of the 82 moons that this gas giant has, the planet that has the most natural satellites.
The study of Enceladus, discovered in 1789 by the British astronomer William Herschel, intensified as of 2005 from the information sent by the Cassini probe. After 20 years in operation, 13 of them studying the gaseous bodies of our solar system and its moons, Cassini disintegrated in the dense atmosphere of Saturn in 2017, when it was at the limit of its fuel, in a planned destruction from the known Earth as ‘The Grand Final’.
But Cassini, before ‘dying’, bequeathed us exciting information about Enceladus. Today we know that this frozen world has, apparently, a liquid ocean inside. For this reason, Enceladus has become a strong candidate to host extraterrestrial life. And we are not talking only about microorganisms that can survive in the most extreme conditions but about somewhat more complex, aquatic life, living under the ice. The water in the interior ocean of Enceladus would be warm, a circumstance promoted by the gravitational forces of the huge planet it orbits. That is, Saturn would be agitating the interior ocean of Enceladus causing it to heat up, and that there are even hydrothermal waters.
The most recent information about Enceladus was released recently, in September: information obtained from the Cassini mission resulted in the most detailed collection of infrared images to date, which revealed the presence of fresh ice at both poles of Enceladus. , caused by recent geological activity.
Water geysers, a temperate ocean, hydrothermal waters, warm regions at the poles … In this gallery, we review the most important discoveries that have taken place around Enceladus, one of the most interesting moons in our solar system , the brightest moon, and a frozen world with the potential to host life.
