[X] My Assistant

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

UMSF isn't, in general, a haven for those with an F&P (fields and particles) fetish, but for those who are afflicted, an interesting paper by Pontius and Hill was published last week in the Journal of Geophysical Reseach-Space Physics. For non-subscribers, a reprint of the paper is available at Duane Pontius's publications page (access the first link and scroll down to the bottom).

[The Messenger]

It appears unavoidable that the physical source is not symmetric about Enceladus, and it seems likely that its centroid is displaced either toward Saturn or downstream, if not both.

mmmm or perhaps a liquid Enceladus center, or a liquid surrounding a magnetic center that is easily reoriented?

...No single set of parameters can fit the inbound and outbound flow observations simultaneously, but parameter sets B (inbound) and E (outbound) give reasonable fits to the observed velocity perturbations...

Is Cassini a big enough bus to change the magnetosphere properties? (unlikely) Are there other spatial factors, wakes from other moons?

...Thus the observed velocity perturbations appear to require a localized mass-loading rate that is considerably in excess of 100 kg/s. This would imply that Enceladus, besides being the obvious source of the particulate E ring is also an important if not dominant source of Saturn’s magnetospheric plasma...

That is a pretty tall order for such a little moon...does Enceladus have a nuclear engine that is kicking out ions at a prodigious rate? That would explain the heat source of the geysers, but why would it still be so hot? Obviously, this mystery is just getting interesting...