The Garden of Learning

Nature & Beasts

Which moon shows geysers of water ice from its south polar 'tiger stripes'?

  • Enceladus
  • Europa
  • Triton

The answer is Enceladus. Feeding Saturn's E ring.

Enceladus

Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn and the 18th largest in the Solar System. It is about 500 kilometres in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. It is covered by clean, freshly deposited snow hundreds of meters thick, making it one of the most reflective bodies of the Solar System. Consequently, its surface temperature at noon reaches only −198 °C, far colder than a light-absorbing body would be. Despite its small size, Enceladus has a wide variety of surface features, ranging from old, heavily cratered regions to young, tectonically deformed terrain.

Wikipedia · Enceladus