The numbers
- Diameter
- 310mi(500 km)A very small moon
- Light reflected
- Almost all of itThe whitest object known
- What it sprays
- Vapor and ice crystalsFrom the south pole
- What it builds
- Saturn's E ring
- When it was discovered
- In 1789, by William Herschel
To get an idea
The jets coming out of its south pole feed one of Saturn's rings.
It is about three hundred miles wide, and yet it has liquid water under its crust.
Fun facts
These are not in the book: there was no room on paper.
It is only about three hundred miles across, so it really is a small moon.
Before the Voyager probes, in the 1980s, almost nothing was known about it.
The jets mean that there must be liquid water somewhere under the icy crust.
That is why it is one of the most promising places to search for life.
It has old, cratered areas right next to young ones that have been completely remade.
Test yourself
The first question is the one printed under the QR code, with the answer the book did not give. The other four only exist here.
Question 1 of 5★ is the one from your book
What comes out of the south pole of Enceladus?
Question 2 of 5
Why is Enceladus so white?
Question 3 of 5
What does it build with the material it sprays out?
Question 4 of 5
What do those jets tell us?
Question 5 of 5
How big is Enceladus?
Riddles
I am very small and very white, the whitest of all, because my own water snows down on me. What does not fall back ends up decorating my master. What am I?
From my south pole I shoot jets of vapor into space, and with them I build a ring around a giant. No other moon has this job. What am I?
If water comes out of me, it means that somewhere down below I have liquid water. And that is strange, because I am very far from the fire. What am I?
Try it yourself
Look for a photograph of the plumes taken against the light: that is how they were seen, with the Sun behind the moon.
Put a clean ice cube next to a dirty one in the sun: the clean one lasts longer, because it sends the light back instead of soaking it up.
The words
- E ring
- The outermost and most spread out of Saturn's rings, made of very fine ice.
Sources: Wikidata (Q3303), Wikipedia (Encelado (astronomia)).