[X] My Assistant

[jsheff]

Enceladus just jumped to way near the top of the list of biologically interesting places. We know how to get to Mars; we some ideas of further exploration of Euiropa and Titan. Has anyone designed a mission to land on Enceladus? What would it take? How much delta vee?

[ljk4-1]

I distinctly remember the National Geographic Magazine issue from 1981
which had an article on Voyager 1's mission to Saturn in late 1980 (but not
Voyager 2's later flyby, which had not happened yet).

Enceladus was rather far from Voyager 1 and no real surface features
could be seen.

This famous montage of the Saturn system includes the Voyager 1
image of the moon where you can see it is essentially blank:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA01482.jpg

And Phil Stooke's more detailed maps and images:

http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/geography/spacemap/enceladu.htm

Scientists speculated that Enceladus' entire surface was
constantly being covered and reshaped by active geysers. The article
even included an artwork depicting these geysers spraying liquid water
from cracks in the crust!

Anyone else remember this or have the actual art handy to post?