The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicProtecting life and infrastructure on Earth and in orbit
Go to topicUsing space to benefit citizens and meet future challenges on Earth
Go to topicMaking space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
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Plumes of icy material extend above the southern polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus, as imaged by the Cassini spacecraft in January 2005. The monochrome view is presented along with a colour-coded image on the right.
The view in this image is perpendicular to the tiger stripe fractures that straddle the south pole.
These images were taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 209 400 kilometres from Enceladus. The image scale is about 1.3 kilometres per pixel.
The mosaic is an orthographic projection centred at 46.8 degrees south latitude, 188 degrees west longitude, and has an image scale of 67 metres per pixel. The original images ranged in resolution from 67 metres per pixel to 350 metres per pixel and were taken at distances ranging from 11 100 to 61 300 kilometres from Enceladus.