Rev 61 Enceladus (March 12 2008) Options

[Holder of the Tw...]

The mission description PDF is now online.

Enceladus 3 Flyby

[nprev]

You got that right, Mike. Superb work, Emily, written in such a way that even a humble artificial intelligence such as myself can understand it all!

The cometary compositional similarity is interesting. Almost begs the question of whether something unexpected (heating) happened to them rather then something funny about Enceladus. I can't see any possibility of Enceladus being a captured body.

[JRehling]

The cometary compositional similarity is interesting. Almost begs the question of whether something unexpected (heating) happened to them rather then something funny about Enceladus. I can't see any possibility of Enceladus being a captured body.

Yeah, is what we're seeing between comets and Enceladus anything but ices + one-time heating to drive a little chemistry? It doesn't look to me any more remarkable than the fact that SiO2 exists in the rocks of Earth, Moon, and Mars or that N2 exists in the atmospheres of Venus, Earth, and Mars. You put the same elements together, and you usually get the same compounds.

[DFortes]

Yeah, is what we're seeing between comets and Enceladus anything but ices + one-time heating to drive a little chemistry? It doesn't look to me any more remarkable than the fact that SiO2 exists in the rocks of Earth, Moon, and Mars or that N2 exists in the atmospheres of Venus, Earth, and Mars. You put the same elements together, and you usually get the same compounds.

Exactly - thankyou.

My view is that the 'comet' label - whether it was meant to or not - connotes some suggestion that the organics are primordial. However, the heat flux and plume activity strongly suggest active chemical synthesis (a la Matson), which (to my feeble mind) is more astrobiologically interesting.