Images coming in from Cassini's Enceladus flyby

False-color image taken by the Cassini-Huygens probe in 2005 to show what the moon looks like from farther out.

Here's one of them:

This image is the third skeet-shoot image taken during Cassini's very close flyby of Enceladus on Aug. 11, 2008. Cairo Sulcus is crossing the southern part of the image. The terrain is littered with blocks of ice. (The image is upside down from the skeet-shoot footprint shown here.) The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 11, 2008, a distance of approximately 1,567 kilometers (974 miles) above the surface of Enceladus. Image scale is approximately 18 meters (59 feet) per pixel.

Here's another one:

This image is the fourth skeet-shoot footprint taken during Cassini's very close flyby of Enceladus on Aug. 11, 2008. Cairo Sulcus is shown crossing the upper left portion of the image. An unnamed fracture curves around the lower right corner. (The image is upside down from the skeet-shoot footprint shown here.) The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera on Aug. 11, 2008, a distance of approximately 2,621 kilometers (1,629 miles) above the surface of Enceladus. Image scale is approximately 20 meters (66 feet) per pixel.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

By the way, on the Wikipedia talk page there's also a bit of a debate from 2006 about how to pronounce the moon's name:

Why specify pronunciation when it's incorrect? Enceladus is a Greek word, and would be pronounced eh-nke-lah-dos. In Latin it is eh-ncheh-lah-doos. If Anglo-Saxons want to continue to badly pronounce words (another blatant case is that of scientific names of animals and plant)... but please don't confound other language people reading the English WikipediaAttilio.

For one thing, Wikipedia should not be prescriptive, but descriptive. We have no business telling people what is correct and incorrect. For another, ενκέλαδος is a Greek word but enceladus is definitely an English word, and is pronounced [ɛnˈsɛlədəs] according to the rules of English orthography. —Keenan Pepper 22:22, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Now, the question is whether many English speakers actually pronounce it [ɛnˈkɛlədəs]. If so, then it should be given as one of two alternate pronunciations. Personally I've never heard that pronunciation. Anybody? —Keenan Pepper 22:26, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Some people use the Latin pronunciation rather than the English, which is why the original is included. Since there are multiple opinions as to how the Latin or Greek should be pronounced, it's best just to use the original orthography and not make a prescriptive attempt with the IPA.

Actually, the word "ενκέλαδος" does not exist in Greek. The n "ν" is replaced with a gamma "γ" when followed by k. The word is pronounced en-geh-lah-thos, the ng part as you would pronounce "anger." And delta is pronounced as th in "the", "then" etc. Not as d. -djak

I was just about to say that! You beat me to it. —Keenan Pepper 23:51, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Good catch. As for the pronunciation, that depends on which form of Greek you're attempting to capture: since Classical Greek distinguished γγ from γκ, it's a good bet that they were pronounced differently, presumably [ŋg] and [ŋk]. And of course [d] for δ. kwami 00:06, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I've tried to restore things back to how they were status quo ante (except for the well-noted correction of the Greek to gamma-kappa). We already had a standard for all the satellite pages with listing both an English phonetic transcription, using only schwa as a special character, followed by the IPA /transcription/, then the Greek spelling. Arguments about how it is pronounced in MODERN Greek are out of place in this article. Sorry, but English pronunciation of Classical Greek and Roman names date back to Shakespearean times. To suggest it must be pronounced today as /eng-KEHL-ah-dhohss/ is hypercorrection gone ad absurdum. A reminder that this satellite of Saturn is NOT the actual mythological Titan, but named after it. We astronomers would just as gladly call it 'Saturn II' again. ;) I am concerned though about the actual Greek spelling a bit as I think about it though. Could nu-kappa be correct if it is etymologically an affix en put in front of celados? --Sturmde 01:11, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, Greek orthography does not allow nu before the velars gamma, kappa, chi, or ksi. There are no words starting with eng or enk in the concise Liddell & Scott, and in most of the words starting egg and egk, the eg- is a prefix. kwami 01:59, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

After the Pioneer 11 or Voyager 1 encounter with Saturn, National Geographic noted that scientists couldn't agree on the pronunciations. Some pronounced it en-say-LAD-us, making it sound like a Mexican dish. Mimas was the same: My-mas or Mee-mas. I agree, though, that as words have entered English, we have applied English pronunciation rules to part or all of the words, and the reverse is true as English words were added to other languages: television being "tay-lay-vee-zyon" in French. For us, when a C is followed by an E, I or Y, we make it a soft C.

New question: what do you folks think the adjective form would be? "Enceladian?" How about "Enceladine?"

I've seen Enceladean used. But to be honest, I haven't seen the adjective form used in print very often. --Volcanopele 19:05, 19 September 2006 (UTC)