About Enceladus
Enceladus is an epic moon.
It orbits about 9.54 AU from the Sun — roughly 9.5 times Earth's distance.
Epic moon 66 EP
Enceladus
Position computed live · planets
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Live ephemeris
This object moves — fetching its current position…
Score breakdown
· 5 badgesEpic 78 pts → Anomaly
- Subsurface ocean +18
- Volcanically active +18
- Moon +16
- Has a proper name +8
- Tidally locked +6
Total score 66
12 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
- Moon · +16
- Has a proper name · +8
- Subsurface ocean · +18
- Volcanically active · +18
- Tidally locked · +6
Trivia
Hard to believe
- Round under its own weight. Big enough that its own gravity has pulled it into a sphere — most of its neighbours are potato-shaped rubble.
What it actually is
- Its address. It orbits about 9.54 AU from the Sun — roughly 9.5 times Earth's distance.
- Around its planet. It circles its planet at a distance of 237.9 thousand km — about 62% of the Earth–Moon gap — coming right round once every 1.4 days.
Sense of scale
- Against Earth. It is only 4% of Earth's width — you could pack about 16.1 thousand of it inside our planet.
- Against our Moon. Smaller than our own Moon — about 15% of its width.
- Ground to cover. Its whole surface adds up to about 798.6 thousand km² — about 1% of Earth's dry land.
- Walk around it. Walking right round its equator, eight hours a day, would take about 39.6 days.
Time and light
- Sunrise is late. Sunlight takes about 79.3 minutes to get there, against eight minutes to reach us.
Properties
- color
- #eef2f4
- diameter km
- 504.2
- name
- Enceladus
- named
- yes
- radius km
- 252.1
- subsurface ocean
- yes
- tidally locked
- yes
- volcanic
- yes
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, Enceladus is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. Because it moves against the background stars, the live position panel on this page tracks where it is right now. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.
Why Enceladus is an epic moon
Enceladus scores 66 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Moon, Has a proper name, Subsurface ocean, Volcanically active and Tidally locked — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.