Enceladus
Saturn's geyser moon
This tiny, brilliantly white moon erupts jets of water vapor and ice from its south pole, fed by a subsurface ocean. Cassini flew through those plumes — and tasted the ingredients for life.
Image: NASA / Cassini
Vital statistics
Orbits
Saturn
Diameter
504 km
Gravity vs Earth
0.0113 g
Surface Temp
-198 °C
Ice shell
~30 km thick
Did you know
Whitest body in the solar system (reflects 99% of sunlight).
Fact 01
Cassini detected hydrogen — a chemical food source for microbes.
Fact 02
Source of Saturn's E-ring.
Fact 03
Deep dive
Composition
Water-ice crust over a global liquid ocean and rocky core.
Notable missions
- • Cassini (2004–2017)
Research & publications
Jump straight into peer-reviewed papers, preprints and authoritative references for Enceladus.
arXiv (preprints)
Open-access preprints in physics & astrophysics.
NASA ADS
The definitive bibliographic database for astronomy.
Google Scholar
Cross-publisher academic search.
Nature
Peer-reviewed articles in Nature & sister journals.
Wikipedia
Encyclopedic overview & onward references.
Tip: ask the Research AI for a curated reading list → /research
