Enceladus Plume-Orbital Effects?, Does Enceladus have a low-thrust rocket? Options

[nprev]

One interesting question that needs to be answered is just how long Enceladus' plume has lasted over geological time. Just out of curiosity, has anybody calculated how much "thrust" is generated by this continuous outgassing?

Reason I ask is that there just might be enough cumulative effect to cause axial instability, and therefore possibly explain some of the moon's odd geology. Perhaps the hot spot is migratory?

[dvandorn]

Bringing it down to spacecraft terms, though, while the outgassing won't have any appreciable affect on Enceladus' orbit (translation), how about its orientation in regards the rest of the Saturnian moon system (attitude)?

It takes a lot less energy to change something's attitude than to change its orbit...

-the other Doug

[ugordan]

That, too, will be miniscule. The "thrust" is fixed to Enceladus so it amounts to so little over the course of an orbit in the sense that it effectively cancels out the momentum (half the orbit is pushing the other way). In any case, Saturn's tides would overwhelm the small nonzero resultant momentum change.