Enceladus Plume-Orbital Effects?, Does Enceladus have a low-thrust rocket? |
Enceladus Plume-Orbital Effects?, Does Enceladus have a low-thrust rocket? |
Dec 6 2006, 03:02 AM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8784 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
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? -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Dec 6 2006, 07:25 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 |
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 -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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Dec 6 2006, 09:08 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
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.
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Dec 8 2006, 03:55 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 599 Joined: 26-August 05 Member No.: 476 |
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. Agreed miniscule. But just a nit, the vector of the "thrust" in this case appears to be orthogonal to the plane of the orbit so there is no dependency on the position within the orbit. |
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