Cassini completes first Enceladus flyby

Pasadena, Calif. -- The U.S. space agency says its Cassini spacecraft is sending data to Earth following its 30-mile flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus.

Shorty after 9 p.m. Monday Cassini's signal was picked up by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia, and relayed to Cassini mission control at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

NASA scientists said the closest approach occurred at approximately 3:20 p.m., while Cassini was traveling at 40,000 miles per hour relative to Enceladus.

During the flyby, Cassini focused its cameras and other remote sensing instruments on Enceladus with an emphasis on the moon's south pole, where parallel fissures dubbed "tiger stripes" line the region. NASA said that area is of particular scientific interest because geysers of water-ice and vapor continuously jet from the fissures and supply material to Saturn's E-ring.

Scientists hope to learn more about the fissures and whether liquid water is indeed the engine powering the geysers.

Two more Enceladus flybys are planned for October.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International.