{"id":12110,"date":"2025-11-22T11:17:28","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T05:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=12110"},"modified":"2025-11-22T13:45:28","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T08:15:28","slug":"enceladus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/enceladus\/","title":{"rendered":"Enceladus"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Enceladus Latest News\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientists analyzing NASA Cassini data recently identified previously unknown organic compounds in ice particles emitted from Saturn&#8217;s moon Enceladus.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Enceladus<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the <\/span><b>second nearest of the major regular moons of Saturn<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and the <\/span><b>brightest of all <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">its moons.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>Saturn&#8217;s sixth-largest moon.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was discovered in 1789 by the English astronomer William Herschel and <\/span><b>named for one of the Giants (Gigantes) of Greek mythology.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It measures about <\/span><b>500 km in diameter.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It <\/span><b>orbits <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Saturn in a prograde, <\/span><b>nearly circular path<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at a mean distance of 238,020 km.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Enceladus is <\/span><b>tidally locked with Satur<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">n, keeping the same face toward the planet.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It <\/span><b>continually spews out a concoction of water<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and simple <\/span><b>organic chemicals into space.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Its <\/span><b>surface<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which<\/span><b> reflects essentially all of the light that strikes it<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (compared with about 7 percent for Earth\u2019s Moon), is basically <\/span><b>smooth <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">but includes cratered and grooved plains.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>surface <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is <\/span><b>almost pure water ice<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with trace amounts of carbon dioxide, ammonia, and light hydrocarbons.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Because Enceladus is coated in clean, highly reflective ice, it has the<\/span><b> brightest surface of any object in our solar system.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like other icy moons that orbit gas giants, it&#8217;s <\/span><b>thought that Enceladus maintains a liquid subsurface ocean<\/b> <b>through tidal heating.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is one of the most promising <\/span><b>potential sites in the solar system for hosting life.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientists believe Enceladus possesses the chemical ingredients needed for life and has hydrothermal vents releasing hot, mineral-rich water into its ocean, the same type of environment that may have spawned Earth\u2019s first living organisms.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Key Facts about Cassini Spacecraft<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and the <\/span><b>Italian space agency (ASI).<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cassini was a sophisticated robotic spacecraft sent to<\/span><b> study Saturn<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>its complex system of rings and moons <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in unprecedented detail.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was <\/span><b>launched <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">on October 15, <\/span><b>1997<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It was one of the largest interplanetary spacecraft.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\">The mission consisted of <b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">NASA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/cassini-spacecraft\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cassini<\/a> orbiter<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which was the <\/span><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">first space probe to orbit Saturn<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and the <\/span><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">ESA\u2019s Huygens probe<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which<\/span><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\"> landed on Titan, Saturn\u2019s largest moon.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spacedaily.com\/reports\/Cassini_study_reveals_organic_compounds_from_Enceladus_ocean_plume_999.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">SD<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enceladus is the second nearest of the major regular moons of Saturn and the brightest of all its moons. Read more about Enceladus, Key Facts, Discovery, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":74539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3824,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-12110","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-enceladus","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}