What are the long cracks at the south pole of Enceladus called?

The long cracks at Enceladus’s south pole are called tiger stripes.

They are four roughly parallel fractures in the moon’s south-polar terrain. The informal name comes from their dark, linear appearance and resemblance to stripes. Their official feature names are Alexandria Sulcus, Cairo Sulcus, Baghdad Sulcus, and Damascus Sulcus, but “tiger stripes” is the standard popular and scientific shorthand.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft studied the features in detail during its 2005 encounters with Enceladus. The fractures are unusually warm and active: jets of water vapor, ice particles, salts, and organic compounds escape through them into space. This material helps supply Saturn’s diffuse E ring.

A common mistake is to treat the tiger stripes as ordinary surface markings. They are active tectonic fractures connected to Enceladus’s internal ocean and tidal heating. Their youth, heat, and plume activity are why Enceladus is considered one of the Solar System’s most promising places to investigate potentially habitable environments.