NASA released the most detailed images of Enceladus to date and more similar ones are expected within the coming week.
According to Space.com, the image was taken at an altitude of 1,142 miles and was captured during the Cassini spacecraft's 20th flyby of Enceladus.
"The northern regions are crisscrossed by a spidery network of gossamer-thin cracks that slice through the craters," Paul Helfenstein, a member of the Cassini imaging team at Cornell University, said in a press release. "These thin cracks are ubiquitous on Enceladus, and now we see that they extend across the northern terrains as well."
Cassini arrived at the Saturn system in 2004 and first spotted geysers on the south pole of the planet's sixth-largest moon, Enceladus, the next year.
Cassini's next encounter with Enceladus is planned for Oct. 28, when the spacecraft will come within 30 miles (49 kilometers) of the moon's south polar region. During the encounter, Cassini will make its deepest-ever dive through the moon's plume of icy spray, sampling the chemistry of the extraterrestrial ocean beneath the ice," NASA stated in its release. "Mission scientists are hopeful data from that flyby will provide evidence of how much hydrothermal activity is occurring in the moon's ocean, along with more detailed insights about the ocean's chemistry -- both of which relate to the potential habitability of Enceladus.
"Cassini's final close Enceladus flyby will take place on Dec. 19, when the spacecraft will measure the amount of heat coming from the moon's interior. The flyby will be at an altitude of 3,106 miles (4,999 kilometers)."
