Enceladus Plume Search, Nov. 27 |
Enceladus Plume Search, Nov. 27 |
Nov 24 2005, 04:01 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1465 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Columbus OH USA Member No.: 13 |
Interesting item in the science plan kernel (S16) just released to the NAIF website:
OBSERVATION_ID: S1629 SEQUENCE: S16 OBSERVATION_TITLE: Plume Search SCIENCE_OBJECTIVE: Hope to detect/observe plumes, whether from volcanic activity or geysers. OBS_DESCRIPTION: Point and stare. SUBSYSTEM: ISS PRIMARY_POINTING: ISS_NAC to Enceladus (0.0,5.0,0.0 deg. offset) REQUEST_ID: ISS_018EN_PLUMES001_PRIME REQUEST_TITLE: ENCELADUS Geyser/Plume Search REQ_DESCRIPTION: 1;ENCELADUS Geyser/Plume Search 1x1xNPp -- 3 different exposures BEGIN_TIME: 2005 NOV 27 19:00:00 UTC END_TIME: 2005 NOV 27 20:00:00 UTC -------------------- |
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Nov 28 2005, 03:51 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 903 Joined: 30-January 05 Member No.: 162 |
What is the power source for this?
{Wild speculation alert} There is a small asteroid, Toro, that was until about a 100 years ago, in a resonant orbit around the sun with Venus. Since then it has been in a resonance with earth. IIRC, the transition period took several years. Is there any feasability that Enceladus is doing something similar with other moons of Saturn? Could Enceladus have an orbit around Saturn that periodically swaps resonances with 2 other satellites? Perhaps the period 'overshoots' slowly one resonance and oscillates back towards another which it overshoots and repeats the process. We see the plumes as powered from the internal heating from the times the resonances are strong and flex the crust (like Io), but our observations are in a time period between and we don't calculate that Enceladus is currently in a resonance. I don't have the math skills or theoretical background to evaluate this. What other possibilities exist for heating Enceladus? Radionuclides seem most unlikely, residual heat from an impact would seem to be something that would dissipate very rapidly. Solar heating of an object with an albedo of 1 is ruled out. Formation heat should have dissipated billions of years ago. Electrical effects of Saturn's magnetosphere are too weak (by orders of magnitutde). What else is there to heat Enceladus? We have visible plumes, what kind of dissipation are we looking at? Megawatts? Great fun figuring this one out! |
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