title: Enceladus' water vapor plume.
abstract: The Cassini spacecraft flew close to Saturn's small moon Enceladus three times in 2005. Cassini's UltraViolet Imaging Spectrograph observed stellar occultations on two flybys and confirmed the existence, composition, and regionally confined nature of a water vapor plume in the south polar region of Enceladus. This plume provides an adequate amount of water to resupply losses from Saturn's E ring and to be the dominant source of the neutral OH and atomic oxygen that fill the Saturnian system.
authors.affiliation: Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA. Candice.j.Hansen@jpl.nasa.gov
authors.forename: Candice J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Hansen
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Esposito
authors.forename: A I F
authors.initials: AI
authors.lastname: Stewart
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Colwell
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hendrix
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Pryor
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Shemansky
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: West
mesh_terms: D001272:Atmosphere; D005118:Extraterrestrial Environment / Q000737:chemistry; D005740:Gases; D018539:Saturn; D018531:Spacecraft; D013056:Spectrophotometry, Ultraviolet; D014867:Water / Q000032:analysis*
chemical_list: D005740:Gases; D014867:Water