Vapor jets from Enceladus. Click for a bit larger version. Image(s) credit: Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Here’s a new image from the November 21st Enceladus flyby by the Cassini spacecraft. The unprocessed image shows the southern polar region and the jets of water vapor and other particles coming from the fissures on the surface.

There is another image (click here) showing a close view of some of the ridges and fractures on Enceladian surface.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.