Saturn’s icy, crescent moon shines above its rings in stunning NASA (photo)

A crescent moon shines above Saturn's distinctive rings in a newly-released photo from NASA.

Saturn's small, icy moon Enceladus looks like a sliver against the blackness of space in the photo taken by the Cassini spacecraft when the probe, charged with exploring Saturn and its moons, flew about 630,000 miles from Enceladus in July 2015.

Some scientists have long-thought that Enceladus might actually be one of the bodies in the solar system most likely to have the conditions to support microbial life. Recently, researchers have confirmed that Enceladus actually plays host to a global ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell, a possible place where life could thrive.

In October, Cassini made a deep dive through a plume of alien ocean spray being shot into space through cracks in the moon's surface.

NASA is in the process of analyzing the flyby data taken by Cassini — the craft doesn't have the ability to actually detect signs of life — but it is possible that the sample will tell scientists a little bit about whether the ocean could be habitable at all.

"While the Cassini spacecraft does not have the instruments need to detect life, it does have the instruments that can tell us about the characteristics of that ocean, and it is those characteristics that control habitability, that control whether or not life on Enceladus is even a remote possibility," Cassini program scientist Curt Niebur said during a press conference before the flyby.

Enceladus is also responsible for adding to the beauty of Saturn's rings. The icy plume constantly shooting from the moon actually creates what is known as the "E ring" around the planet as Enceladus circles the world in the same orbit year after year.

Cassini should continue exploring Saturn and its moons until about 2017, when it is expected to run out of fuel and make its planned crash into the planet's atmosphere after more than a decade of exploration.

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