Enceladus Jet Sources |
Enceladus Jet Sources |
Oct 10 2007, 05:20 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
New press release by the imaging team:
Cassini Pinpoints Hot Sources of Jets on Enceladus October 10, 2007 (Source: Space Science Institute) CICLOPS link to the release here. One thing I was curious about tiger stripe naming - why didn't they switch "Baghdad" and "Cairo" so we have a nice A,B,C,D progression? I can only imagine it was done on purpose, but why? -------------------- |
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Jun 25 2009, 06:42 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 276 Joined: 11-December 07 From: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Member No.: 3978 |
The current understanding of the geysers of Enceladus
One says that the presence of Na salts in the E-ring implies an ocean on Enceladus. Another group says that Enceladus has as much Na (note here they are mentioning the plumes) as there is in a glass of relatvely pure water (metaphorically speaking). So they suggest that the plumes are rather like an air conditioner set to gentle breeze rather than geyser speed Now a question, how do you connect gigawatts of heat energy incorporated in the plumes with gentle breeze speed? -------------------- |
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Jun 25 2009, 08:30 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 700 Joined: 3-December 04 From: Boulder, Colorado, USA Member No.: 117 |
A clarification- according to the "misty caverns" idea, the water vapor evaporates from the salt-water interface at a slow, gentle rate, but over a large area, and by doing so it builds up pressure in those chambers, and then it rushes out the "leaks" in the narrow fractures beneath the tiger stripes at supersonic speeds, plenty fast enough (we think) to keep the surface warm. The speed of ejection from the surface is similar in the "geyser" model and the "misty cavern" model- the difference is just whether liquid water is involved near the surface.
The slow evaporation from large water surfaces was an idea that originated with the CDA team, in fact, but it helps nicely to reconcile the two data sets. We put together a graphic as part of the Cassini web release that I hope explains the options in a somewhat comprehensible form. The different interpretations have proved tricky to explain to people, and of course there may be even better models that we haven't thought of yet. So further suggestions are welcome! John. |
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