In the Solar System · tracked live
Enceladus
A moon only 500 km across that is one of the brightest objects in the Solar System, because its surface is fresh snow. At its south pole four long cracks - the tiger stripes - vent water from an ocean underneath, and the spray is what feeds Saturn's E ring. Cassini flew through the plumes and found salt, silica and organic molecules, and phosphorus in the ice grains, which makes that ocean one of the best places to ask whether life needs the Earth.
- Radius
- 252 km
- Around the equator
- 1,584 km
- From the Sun
- 1,410,940,763 km (+241,956 km/d)
- From the Earth
- 1,262,361,764 km (+561,934 km/d)
- A signal takes
- 70 min
- Goes round
- Saturn
- Placed to within
- 1,960 km
Distances and speed are computed from JPL Horizons trajectories and are true of the date below, changing at the rate beside each.
Everything the map shows is worked out in your browser from published orbital data - nothing on it is a stored picture of where things were.