Sarandib Planitia is a region of relatively un-cratered terrain on
SaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant...
's moon
EnceladusEnceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. Until the two Voyager spacecraft passed near it in the early 1980s, very little was known about this small moon besides the identification of water ice on its surface...
. It is located at 4.4° North
LatitudeLatitude, usually denoted by the Greek letter phi gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the equator. Lines of Latitude are the imaginary horizontal lines shown running east-to-west on maps that run either north or south of the equator...
, 298.0° West
LongitudeLongitude , identified by the Greek letter lambda , is the geographic coordinate most commonly used in cartography and global navigation for east-west measurement...
and is approximately 200 km across. From
Voyager images, Sarandib Planitia is considered part of either the ridged plains unit (Kargel and Pozio 1996) or smooth plains unit (Rothery 1999) of Enceladus, thought to be the youngest terrain on Enceladus. In more recent (and higher resolution)
Cassini images, Sarandib is resolved into a region of relatively low ridges, with a band of rifted terrain cutting through the middle from northwest to southeast.
Sarandib Planitia is a region of relatively un-cratered terrain on
SaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant...
's moon
EnceladusEnceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn. It was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. Until the two Voyager spacecraft passed near it in the early 1980s, very little was known about this small moon besides the identification of water ice on its surface...
. It is located at 4.4° North
LatitudeLatitude, usually denoted by the Greek letter phi gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the equator. Lines of Latitude are the imaginary horizontal lines shown running east-to-west on maps that run either north or south of the equator...
, 298.0° West
LongitudeLongitude , identified by the Greek letter lambda , is the geographic coordinate most commonly used in cartography and global navigation for east-west measurement...
and is approximately 200 km across. From
Voyager images, Sarandib Planitia is considered part of either the ridged plains unit (Kargel and Pozio 1996) or smooth plains unit (Rothery 1999) of Enceladus, thought to be the youngest terrain on Enceladus. In more recent (and higher resolution)
Cassini images, Sarandib is resolved into a region of relatively low ridges, with a band of rifted terrain cutting through the middle from northwest to southeast. In addition, a series of long-wavelength compression ridges are seen in the western portion of Sarandib Planitia, reminiscent of banded terrain on
EuropaEuropa is the sixth moon of the planet Jupiter. Europa was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei , and named after a mythical Phoenician noblewoman, Europa, who was courted by Zeus and became the queen of Crete...
, like Astypalaea Linea. Only ~20
cratersIn the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...
larger than 1 kilometer across (the largest only 4.5 kilometers across) have been found in Sarandib, demonstrating the youthful age of the region.
Sarandib Planitia is bounded on the north and west by a band of grooved terrain named
Samarkand SulciSamarkand Sulci is a region of grooved terrain on the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The feature is centered at 30.5° North Latitude, 326.8° West Longitude and is approximately 383 kilometers long. Samarkand Sulci consists of three parts. The southern and eastern extensions bound Sarandib...
. Given the similarity in the spatial relationship between the
Diyar PlanitiaDiyar Planitia is a region of relatively un-cratered terrain on Saturn's moon Enceladus. It is located at 0.5° North Latitude, 239.7° West Longitude and is approximately 311 km across....
and
Harran SulciHarran Sulci is a region of grooved terrain on the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The feature is centered at 26.7° North Latitude, 237.6° West Longitude and is approximately 276 kilometers long...
, it is likely that the formation of Sarandib Plantia and Samarkand Sulci are related.
SarandibSerendib may refer to:*Serendib, the old Arabic/Persian name for Sri Lanka*Serendib , a spider genus *Serendib, a location on the fictional Plane of Rabiah from the card game Magic: the Gathering...
Planitia is named after
Sri LankaSri Lanka , officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka , is an island country in South Asia, located about off the southern coast of India...
, an island visited by Sindbad on his 6th voyage in Arabian Nights.