Enceladus Plume (Webb [NIRSpec] and Cassini Image)

Enceladus Plume (Webb [NIRSpec] and Cassini Image)

An image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) shows a water vapor plume jetting from the southern pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, extending out more than 20 times the size of the moon itself. The inset, an image from the Cassini orbiter, emphasizes how small Enceladus appears in the Webb image compared to the water plume.

Webb is allowing researchers, for the first time, to directly see how this plume feeds the water supply for the entire system of Saturn and its rings. By analyzing the Webb data, astronomers have determined roughly 30 percent of the water stays within this torus, a fuzzy donut of water that is co-located with Saturn’s “E-ring,” and the other 70 percent escapes to supply the rest of the Saturnian system with water.

Enceladus, an ocean world about four percent the size of Earth, just 313 miles across, is one of the most exciting scientific targets in our solar system in the search for life beyond Earth. A global reservoir of salty water sits below the moon’s icy outer crust, and geyser-like volcanoes spew jets of ice particles, water vapor, and organic chemicals out of crevices in the moon’s surface informally called ‘tiger stripes.’

NIRSpec was built for the European Space Agency (ESA) by a consortium of European companies led by Airbus Defence and Space (ADS) with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre providing its detector and micro-shutter subsystems.

Credits

Image

NASA, ESA, CSA, Gerónimo Villanueva (NASA-GSFC)

Image Processing

Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

About The Object
Object Name Enceladus
Object Description Water vapor plume from Saturn’s moon Enceladus
About The Data
Data Description This image was created with Webb data from proposal: (G. Villanueva).
Instrument NIRSpec IFU
Exposure Dates 09 Nov 2022
About The Image
Color Info This image is an H20 map created from the NIRSpec IFU data aquired by the James Webb Space Telescope. The color results from assigning blue to a monochromatic (grayscale) image. 
About The Object
Object Name A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
Object Description The type of astronomical object.
R.A. Position Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.
Dec. Position Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.
Constellation One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.
Distance The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs.
Dimensions The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky.
About The Data
Data Description
  • Proposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
  • Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.
Instrument The science instrument used to produce the data.
Exposure Dates The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.
Filters The camera filters that were used in the science observations.
About The Image
Image Credit The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content.
Publication Date The date and time the release content became public.
Color Info A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented.
Orientation The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere.

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