On this date in 1789 Sir William Herschel discovered Saturn's moon Enceladus. 10 facts about Enceladus:
He discovered it the first time he used his 1.2 m (47 in) 40-foot Telescope, then the largest in the world, at Observatory House in Slough, England.
At about 500 kilometres (310 miles) in diameter, Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn and the 19th-largest in the Solar System.
It is one seventh the diameter of our own Moon.
It orbits Saturn every 32.9 hours.
It orbits Saturn at 238,000 km (148,000 miles) from the planet's centre and 180,000 km (110,000 miles) from its cloud tops, between the orbits of Mimas and Tethys.
Its orbit is within the densest part of Saturn's E ring, the outermost of the major rings. It fact, Saturn’s E Ring has been found to be made up of particles from Enceladus. This was confirmed by the space probe Cassini when it flew past in 2005 and sent back pictures of geyser-like jets of icy particles rising from Enceladus's south polar region.
Enceladus is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it one of the most reflective bodies of the Solar System.
A wobble in its orbit suggests there might be an ocean under the ice which could be about 26 to 31 kilometres (16 to 19 miles) deep. The oceans on Earth, by comparison are about 3.7km deep.
Enceladus featured in the 2016 short story The Water Walls of Enceladus by Mercurio D. Rivera.
Enceladus is named after the giant Enceladus of Greek mythology.
The first in a new series! It has invading aliens, gladiator-style contests, rivalry and romance.
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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