Enceladus faces a frozen future as it freezes.

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3488

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<p><font size="2"><strong>Interesting, not the first time i've seen that a planetary moon may had 'recently' been thrown into a more elliptical orbit then settle back down into a more circular one. </strong></font></p><p><font size="2"><strong>Ganymede, Jupiter's giant moon, 1 GYA & much more recently with Saturn's Enceladus 30 MYA? What would really interest me, is what caused both to leave circular Jovecentric & Kronecentric orbits respectively in the first place?</strong></font></p><p><strong><font size="2">Current tidal heating appears to be woefully inadequate to keep Enceladus from freezing to the centre, like the inner neighbour Mimas.</font></strong></p><p><font size="2" color="#000080"><strong>Enceladus faces a frozen future as it freezes.</strong></font></p><p><strong><font size="2">Andrew Brown.</font></strong>http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080619-am-enceladus-ocean.html</p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#000080">"I suddenly noticed an anomaly to the left of Io, just off the rim of that world. It was extremely large with respect to the overall size of Io and crescent shaped. It seemed unbelievable that something that big had not been visible before".</font> <em><strong><font color="#000000">Linda Morabito </font></strong><font color="#800000">on discovering that the Jupiter moon Io was volcanically active. Friday 9th March 1979.</font></em></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://www.launchphotography.com/</font><br /><br /><font size="1" color="#000080">http://anthmartian.googlepages.com/thisislandearth</font></p><p><font size="1" color="#000080">http://web.me.com/meridianijournal</font></p> </div>
 
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DrRocket

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<p>Interesting article, but I thought a bit Anglo-phobic.</p><p><br />"Since Enceladus is roughly the size of Great Britain, everyone assumed it would be dull and boring."<img src="http://sitelife.space.com/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-wink.gif" border="0" alt="Wink" title="Wink" /></p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
 
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h2ouniverse

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<p>hi andrew,</p><p>&nbsp;The idea that the current state of Enceladus is of transient nature has been&nbsp; floated around since the discovery of the plume in 2006. So this is not a new idea. Combines with the recently "model-proven" fact that orbits (especially the ones of the lightest bodies in a system, e.g. Mercury, Mars for Solar system) are highly variable in time... &nbsp;What I find interesting though is the demonstration that if Enceladus had frozen in the past, tidal energy could no longer melt it again (which would imply that an ocean has always existed). However I wonder if it is still true in case the excentricity was far larger few tens of millions years ago...</p><p>Apparently, their model indicates that it has been liquid for the previous 30 million years, and should remain so for another 30 millions. Finally, 30+30=60 million years of liquid phase is not that bad. Lager than what I thought... And more than what it took for microbial life to develop (or re-develop) on Earth after the Late Heavy Bombardment.</p><p>The other implication could also be that Dione or any "light" icy moon in Jovian, Saturnian, Uranian systems&nbsp;(or even Plutonian or&nbsp;ELsixty-onian)&nbsp;could experience transient partial melting.</p><p>Another example of the "illusion of constancy"...</p><p>&nbsp;Regards.</p>
 
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h2ouniverse

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<p><BR/>Replying to:<BR/><DIV CLASS='Discussion_PostQuote'>What would really interest me, is what caused both to leave circular Jovecentric & Kronecentric orbits respectively in the first place?.Andrew Brown. <br />Posted by 3488</DIV><br /><br />Andrew, I would think of the same mechanism as for Mercury (http://www.obspm.fr/actual/nouvelle/jul04/merc.en.shtml)</p><p>regards</p>
 
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