"Tiger" Tail

Image courtesy NASA

Caught between light and dark, a "tiger stripe" fissure on Saturn's moon Enceladus comes into stark relief in a picture taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft during an August 13 flyby.

The tiger stripes near Enceladus's south pole are the sources of the moon's icy geysers, which spew water vapor and organic particles into space.

This particular fissure, dubbed Damascus Sulcus, was among several tiger stripes thermally scanned during a previous flyby (picture) as part of efforts to tell whether the geysers are produced by underground reservoirs of liquid water.