A NASA satellite exploring Saturn has just beamed back new, close-up images of the planet's moon Enceladus — an object that could be one of the most habitable places in the solar system.

The Cassini spacecraft made its most recent close pass of Enceladus on Oct. 14, flying just 1,124 miles from the moon's surface. The flyby has returned the best-ever photos of Enceladus' northern polar area, according to NASA.

Scientists initially thought that the moon's north pole would be extremely cratered because of images sent back by the Voyager mission years ago, but Cassini's new photos show that the real story isn't quite so simple.

"The northern regions are crisscrossed by a spidery network of gossamer-thin cracks that slice through the craters," Paul Helfenstein, a member of the Cassini imaging team, said in a statement. "These thin cracks are ubiquitous on Enceladus, and now we see that they extend across the northern terrains as well."

A Cassini view of Saturn's moon Enceladus on Oct. 14, 2015.

Some researchers are particularly interested in gathering more information about Enceladus because it harbors a deep, global ocean beneath its icy crust.

The body of water could potentially be a good place for microbial life to thrive, though scientists need to collect quite a bit more data before they know if the chemistry of the water could be friendly for life as we know it.

The fissures seen in the moon's surface could actually help out scientists hoping to understand the cosmic body's ocean.

Plumes of icy spray sometimes erupt from Enceladus, shooting material from the subsurface ocean out into space. Cassini is schedule to make a deep dive above the moon, passing just 30 miles from the world's south pole, possibly allowing it to sample bits of the ocean shot into space from a crack in the crust.

"During the encounter, Cassini will make its deepest-ever dive through the moon's plume of icy spray, sampling the chemistry of the extraterrestrial ocean beneath the ice," NASA said in the statement.

Cassini's view of Enceladus' craters on Oct. 14, 2015.

"Mission scientists are hopeful data from that flyby will provide evidence of how much hydrothermal activity is occurring in the moon's ocean, along with more detailed insights about the ocean's chemistry — both of which relate to the potential habitability of Enceladus," NASA added.

The spacecraft is planning to make its final close-up observations of Enceladus on Dec. 19, when it flies 3,106 miles above the moon.

Cassini is nearing the close of its long life at Saturn. The probe arrived at the ringed planet in 2004, and its mission is expected to end in 2017 when the craft runs out of fuel and makes a death-dive into the world's atmosphere, burning up in the process.