Results tagged “Enceladus”

On icy worlds, the ice shell and subsurface ocean form a coupled system -- heat and salinity flux from the ice shell induced by the ice thickness gradient drives circulation in the ocean, and in turn, the heat transport by ocean circulation shapes the ice shell.

Globally ice-covered oceans have been found on multiple moons in the solar system and may also have been a feature of Earth's past. However, relatively little is understood about the dynamics of these ice-covered oceans, which affect not only the physical environment but also any potential life and its detectability.

Over the south pole of Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, geysers eject water into space in a striped pattern, making Enceladus one of the most attractive destinations in the search for extraterrestrial life.

The geologically active south pole of Enceladus generates a plume of micron-sized particles, which likely form Saturn's tenuous E-ring extending from the orbit of Mimas to Titan.

Lake Untersee located in Eastern Antarctica, is a perennially ice-covered lake. At the bottom of its southern basin lies 20 m of anoxic, methane rich, stratified water, making it a good analog for Enceladus, a moon of Saturn.

In 2006, the Cassini spacecraft recorded geyser curtains shooting forth from "tiger stripe" fissures near the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus -- sometimes as much as 200 kilograms of water per second.

The ice shell of Enceladus exhibits strong asymmetry between its hemispheres, with all known geysers concentrated over the south pole, even though its orbital configuration is almost perfectly symmetric.

Tidal dissipation is thought to be responsible for the observed high heat loss on Enceladus. Forced librations can enhance tidal dissipation in the ice shell, but how such librations affect the thermal state of Enceladus has not been investigated.

Tidal stresses may be causing constant icequakes on Saturn's sixth largest moon Enceladus, a world of interest in the search for life beyond Earth, according to a new study.

An unknown methane-producing process is likely at work in the hidden ocean beneath the icy shell of Saturn's moon Enceladus, suggests a new study published in Nature Astronomy by scientists at the University of Arizona and Paris Sciences & Lettres University.

Saturn's E ring consists of micron-sized particles launched from Enceladus by that moon's geological activity. A variety of small-scale structures in the E-ring's brightness have been attributed to tendrils of material recently launched from Enceladus.

The structure of the icy shells of ocean worlds is important for understanding the stability of their underlying oceans as it controls the rate at which heat can be transported outward and radiated to space.

Of profound astrobiological interest is that not only does Enceladus have a water ocean, but it also appears to be salty, important for its likely habitability.

A technique for scanning Mars rocks for microscopic fossils of ancient life is also being developed to hunt for microbes in the deep ice of Enceladus, Titan, and Europa.

One of the most profound discoveries in planetary science over the past 25 years is that worlds with oceans beneath layers of rock and ice are common in our solar system.

The building blocks of Titan and Enceladus are believed to have formed in a late-stage circumplanetary disk around Saturn.

The Cassini mission to the Saturn system discovered a plume of ice grains and water vapor erupting from cracks on the icy surface of the satellite Enceladus. This moon has a global ocean in contact with a rocky core beneath its icy exterior, making it a promising location to search for evidence of extraterrestrial life in the solar system.

Using data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, scientists at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) modeled chemical processes in the subsurface ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus. The studies indicate the possibility that a varied metabolic menu could support a potentially diverse microbial community in the liquid water ocean beneath the moon's icy facade.

New composite images made from NASA's Cassini spacecraft are the most detailed global infrared views ever produced of Saturn's moon Enceladus. And data used to build those images provides strong evidence that the northern hemisphere of the moon has been resurfaced with ice from its interior.

Orbital geophysical investigations of Enceladus are critical to understand its energy balance. Mapping Enceladus' gravity field, improving the accuracy of the physical libration amplitude, and measuring Enceladus' tidal response would provide critical constraints on the internal structure, thus establishing a framework for assessing Enceladus' long-term habitability.