Enceladus: Cosmic Graffiti Artist Caught in the Act
Anne Verbiscer,1*
Richard French,2
Mark Showalter,3
Paul Helfenstein4
As one of the most geologically active bodies in the solar system,
Saturn's moon Enceladus not only coats itself with water ice
particles, it accounts for the unusually high albedos of the
other satellites orbiting within Saturn's vast, tenuous E ring.
This effect is evident in Hubble Space Telescope observations
obtained at true opposition on 13 and 14 January 2005 that reveal
that the mean geometric albedos of satellites embedded within
the E ring approximate or exceed unity.
2 Department of Astronomy, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02481, USA.
3 Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute, Mountain View, CA 94043, USA.
4 Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: verbiscer{at}virginia.edu
