main page newsspace newscassini saw swirling ice on enceladus

Cassini saw swirling ice on Enceladus. / January 14, 2010 /

Scientists using the tools space probe «Cassini» first saw the swirling icy surface of Enceladus. Article astrophysicists appeared in the journal Nature Geoscience, and its summary is provided at NASA.

In the new work, scientists have registered rising from the depths of the hot (by the standards of the satellite) «bubble». The fact that the bulk of the crust of Enceladus is composed of ice, cracked apart by tidal forces of Saturn. In this matter of the cortex is mixed, and the fragments from the interior can rise to the surface.

Scientists compare this movement with the movement of bubbles in the wax night lamp. The temperature of this «bubble» on Enceladus is about 273 Kelvin, while the temperature at the surface — 80 kelvins.

New observations help explain the unusual structure of the crust Saturnian satellite. The fact that the age of the northern part of Enceladus is about 4.2 billion years, the equatorial plains of not more than 3.7 billion years old, and ice cover in the south in general may be less than 100 million. In the light of new results, this fact is explained by the gradual lifting of the neocortex from the depths of Saturn’s moon.

Astrophysics emphasize that they were fortunate to register the «bubble», because such events are quite rare. At present, Enceladus is undergoing a period of activity, which lasts 10 million years. The intervals between such periods may be from 100 million to a billion years.

Print version