Enceladus activity may be diffuse curtain eruptions

New research using data from NASA's Cassini mission suggests most of the eruptions from Saturn's moon Enceladus might be diffuse curtains rather than discrete jets. Many features that appear to be individual jets of material erupting along the length of prominent fractures in the moon's south polar region might be phantoms created by an optical illusion, according to the new study.

Link - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4575



Phantom jets in simulated images produced by the scientists line up nicely with some of the features in real Cassini images that appear to be discrete columns of spray. The correspondence between simulation and spacecraft data suggests that much of the discrete-jet structure is an illusion.

Link - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia19061