Cold Light Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus is the most reflective object in our solar system. Its icy surface reflects about 100% of the light that reaches it. Because it doesn’t absorb much sunlight, its temperatures reach about -201 Celsius (-330 Fahrenheit). –science.nasa.gov
You read it first in this week’s The Factory in Guide magazine.
What is your favorite planet in the solar system? For many, it is Saturn because of its cool rings which are made up of ice, rock and dust. And maybe because Saturn has more than 140 moons that orbit the planet. It certainly is beautiful!
One of Saturn’s moons is called Titan. Titan is even bigger than the planet Mercury! It’s huge!
Another moon that is really spectacular is Enceladus; the sixth largest of Saturn’s moons, it’s a small, icy world that has geyser-like jets spewing water vapor and ice particles into space. And, as mentioned above, this moon is extremely bright because it reflects almost 100% of the light that reaches it.
Can you imagine being on a moon that is so cold, it could get to -330 Fahrenheit??!! I can’t!! Bbbrrrr! How can anything live there? And yet, that’s exactly what some scientists are saying about Enceladus. They say it because this moon has “key ingredients that…could encourage and harbor it [life]”. Being able to research samples of the vapor coming from Enceladus, scientists believe it has a global liquid ocean under a deep, frozen crust, and likely has hydrothermal vents releasing hot, mineral-rich water into its ocean.
Because of some other moons close to it and their gravity pulls, the planet is stretched in an elliptical shape, so Enceladus is sometimes closer and other times farther from Saturn, causing tidal heating within the moon.

Enceladus isn’t very wide; in fact at around 310 mi/500 km, it’s almost as wide as the state of Arizona. Enceladus blasts icy particles out into space and creates its own ring around Saturn as it circles, this is called the E ring.
On August 28, 1789, a man by the name of Sir Frederick William Herschel, a German-British astronomer, discovered this bright, shining moon in its orbit around Saturn. In his lifetime, he also discovered Uranus, infrared radiation and binary stars.
This reminds me of Psalm 19: “The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. 2 Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge.”
There are all kinds of things to discover. As you grow and learn, keep exercising your faith and allow God to guide you in your discoveries!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version, Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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