Sentences with phrase «smooth icy surface»

Scientists were already fairly confident in the ocean's existence, based on the moon's smooth icy surface — evidence of past resurfacing by the ocean — and other observations by the Galileo spacecraft, which made a handful of flybys in the 1990s.

Not exact matches

The smooth, icy surface of Telesto sets it apart from most other Saturnian moons, which are heavily cratered.

Its icy surface was as white and bright as fresh snow, and whereas the other airless moons were heavily pocked with craters, Enceladus was mantled in places with extensive plains of smooth, uncratered terrain, a clear sign of past internally driven geologic activity.

It probably hides a vast, slushy ocean beneath its smooth, icy surface.