Diyar Planitia is a region of relatively un-cratered terrain on

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

's moon

Enceladus Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn and the 18th-largest in the Solar System. It is about in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. It is covered by clean, freshly deposited snow hundreds of meters thick, ...

. Its location is 0.5° North

Latitude In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate system, geographic coordinate that specifies the north-south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from −90° at t ...

, 239.7° West

Longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east- west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lett ...

while its being approximately 311 km across. Images from the ''

Voyager Voyager may refer to: Computing and communications * LG Voyager, a mobile phone model manufactured by LG Electronics * NCR Voyager, a computer platform produced by NCR Corporation * Voyager (computer worm), a computer worm affecting Oracle ...

'' probes could not resolve whether Diyar Planitia is part of the ridged plains unit of Enceladus ( Kargel and Pozio 1996) or the smooth plains unit ( Rothery 1999), which is thought to be the youngest terrain on the moon. The more recent (and higher resolution) '' Cassini'' images show that Diyar is a region of relatively low, north–south trending ridges, with several younger fractures cutting across the region along the same trend. Very few

impact craters An impact crater is a depression in the surface of a solid astronomical body formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact craters typically ...

have been found in Diyar, demonstrating the youthful age of the region. Diyar Planitia is bounded on the north and east by a band of grooved terrain named Harran Sulci. Given the similarity in the spatial relationship between the Sarandib Planitia and

Samarkand Sulci Samarkand 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 part ...

, it is likely that the formation of Diyar Planitia and Harran Sulci are related. Diyar Planitia is named after the country that Khudadad's father rules in ''

Arabian Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' (, ), is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as ''The Arabian Nights'', from the first English-language edition () ...

''.Planetary Names: Planitia, planitiae: Diyar Planitia on Enceladus
''Origin: Country where Khudadad's father ruled'' Updated: Jul 15, 2008 2:28:11 PM

References

# # {{Enceladus Surface features of Enceladus Extraterrestrial plains