Map of Enceladus – December 2008

This global map of Saturn's moon Enceladus was created using images taken during Cassini spacecraft flybys, with Voyager images filling in the gaps in Cassini's coverage.

The map is an equidistant (simple cylindrical) projection and has a scale of 440 meters (1,444 feet) per pixel at the equator. The mean radius of Enceladus used for projection of this map is 252 kilometers (157 miles). This mosaic map is an update to the version released in June 2008 (see Map of Enceladus - August 2008). That mosaic and this one were shifted by 3.5 degrees to the west, compared to 2006 versions, to be consistent with the IAU longitude definition for Enceladus.

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.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org .

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute