Cassini probe teases with intimate Enceladus snaps

NASA has published some unprocessed images of Saturn's moon Enceladus, grabbed earlier this week when the Cassini spacecraft swooped to within 49km (30 miles) of the icy satellite's south polar region. Images from the intimate encounter include Enceladus posing with Saturn's rings... Enceladus and Saturn's rings. Pic: NASA/ …

[Bleu]

It may be distortion

from my current display, it looks like a giant egg, misshapen, with no endian.

Perhaps it will hatch?

[Hero Protagonist]

Re: It may be distortion

When viewing on my phone on the mobile site, pics on El Reg are often distorted unless I rotate to landscape orientation

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: It may be distortion

@Bleu - if that thing's an egg, what say we scramble it, seasoned, and add to a nice plate of rashers?

[~mico]

if they detect unstable organics there...

... they won't tell us

[Mark 85]

Re: if they detect unstable organics there...

Nor will they tell us if those gas jets out of the southern (?) pole are actually engine exhausts.

[Your alien overlord - fear me]

"While NASA says there will be more imagery to come," - once they've photoshopped out the alien bases and signs of life.

[Winkypop]

Close up shot

Now that's a challenging landing area!

Great photos!

Science!

[Chris G]

Re: Close up shot

Don't be daft Winkypop, nobody lands on the surface, usually the doors open and a tractor beam takes you in and places the ship onto a cradle in the docks.

[Will Godfrey]

Curious

That is one weird landscape

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Curious

Looks sublime.

Shame that close-up shot isn't quite in focus.

[cray74]

Appropriate music for the flyby

Besides suitably deep thoughts on the potential for life on Enceladus, its composition, and man's place in the universe (in Jack Handy's voice for some reason), I was trying to think of appropriate music to envision Cassini's 30-mile, 19,000mph fly past of Saturn's moon. The best I've come up with is "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins and "The Final Countdown" by Europe.

Any other suggestions?

[harmjschoonhoven]

soft focus

The image on elreg with size 648x622 is probably an enlarged thumbnail. The Cassini Imaging Science System consists of two framing cameras with CCD detectors with a 1024 square array of pixels.

[Pascal Monett]

Hang on there

How did we go from a big white ball to a close-up of Frodo's path into Mordor ?

Shouldn't a close-up of a white ball be full of white as well ?