Moonrise over Saturn: Nasa orbiter captures geysers of frost shrouding south pole of icy moon Enceladus



Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has captured a spectacular view of the crescent moon Enceladus in front off the planet.



The orbiter captured the famous jets of water ice spraying from Saturn's moon Enceladus in a recent visible-light image - visible as a very faint smoky halo of ice shrouding the moon's south pole.



The 'smoky' effect at the bottom of the crescent moon Enceladus are geyser-like jets that create a halo of ice, dust and gas around Enceladus that helps feed Saturn's E ring

The spacecraft has orbited the planet Saturn since 2004, studying the planet, its mysterious moons, and its rings of tiny particles of ice.

The geyser-like jets on Enceladus appear as a small white blur below the dark south pole, down and to the right of the illuminated part of the moon's surface in the image.

The jets are made of water ice - and hint that Enceladus could have oceans below its surface.

The geyser-like jets create a halo of ice, dust and gas around Enceladus that helps feed Saturn's E ring.







This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the plane of Saturn's rings.



The image was taken in visible light with one of the cameras aboard the Cassini spacecraft on January 4 2012 and released by Nasa this week.



The view was obtained at a distance of approximately 181,000 miles from Enceladus.



Cassini captured this image of Tethys - the smaller moon, just 660 miles across - floating just under Saturn's rings in front of the planet









