NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Dives into Enceladus' Icy Spray Today!

First Posted: Oct 28, 2015 08:32 AM EDT

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is set to sample the ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus today as it dives through the moon's plume of icy spray. The new samples could be huge when it comes to understanding this moon.

Cassini first launched in 1997 and entered orbit around Saturn in 2004. Since then, the spacecraft has been studying the huge planet and its magnetic field along with its moons.

One of these moons is Enceladus, which is icy. This moon, in particular, has remarkable geologic activity, including a towering plume of ice, water vapor and organic molecules spraying from its south polar region. Cassini later determined that the moon has a global ocean and likely hydrothermal activity, meaning it could have the ingredients needed to support life.

Cassini has actually done other flybys, but this will be its deepest-ever dive through the Enceladus plume, which is thought to come from the ocean below its icy surface. This new maneuver isn't meant to detect life, but it could provide powerful new insights about how habitable the ocean environment is within Enceladus.

In addition, the flyby will help solve the mystery of whether the plume is composed of column-like, individual jets, or sinuous, icy curtain eruptions, or a combination of both.

The findings could be huge when it comes to understanding Enceladus. In particular, it may tell scientists more about similar worlds within our solar system.

Want to learn more? You can find out about the three final Enceladus flybys on NASA's website.

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TagsEnceladus, Saturn, Cassini, Cassini Spacecraft, NASA, NASA’s, Moon