Enceladus info and pictures

[EarthlingX]

Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn.
Wiki : Moons of Saturn
Cassini : About Saturn & Its Moons

Wiki : Saturn
Cassini : Saturn
Cassini : Saturn image gallery

Blinding Saturn


Wiki : Enceladus
Cassini : Enceladus

Enceladus to Scale


Enceladus in False Color


Cassini's annotated images from Enceladus image gallery

Map of Enceladus - February 2010 :


Polar maps - February 2010 :
South :


North :


The Enceladus Atlas, December 2008 :


Ancient Terrain on Enceladus


Enceladus Offset Spreading Center


Great Southern Land (Labeled)


The North Polar Region of Enceladus -- Labeled


Boulder-strewn Surface


Fractured World, December, 2006


Enceladus: Global Patterns of Fracture (Northern Polar Projection)


Enceladus: Global Patterns of Fracture (Southern Polar Projection)


Bursting at the Seams - mosaic - February 2010 :


Gas and Dust Jets Match Up


Enceladus Jet Sources


Enceladus Temperature Map


Enceladus Keeps the Home Fires Burning


Jet Spots in Tiger Stripes (Annotated)


Enceladus' Warm Baghdad Sulcus - February 2010 :


Baghdad Sulcus in Context -- Annotated - February 2010 :


Perspective View of Damascus Sulcus, Enceladus, September 2009 :


Perspective View of Baghdad Sulcus, Enceladus, September 2009 :


Perspective View of Cairo Sulcus, Enceladus, September 2009 :


Baghdad and Cairo Sulci on Enceladus (labeled)


Damascus Sulcus on Enceladus (labeled)


Plume Vent Models, June 2009 :


Enceladus Plume Neutral Mass Spectrum Description


Enceladus 'Cold geyser' Model :


Modeling 'Warm' Ice on Enceladus :


Enceladus Geysers Mask the Length of Saturn's Day


Water Vapor & Particles Over Enceladus


Enceladus Atmosphere Not Global


Enceladus Atmosphere

 

[EarthlingX]

Celestia 'quick' tour to Saturn :
( Green are orbits of the moons, blue planets, grey spacecraft, red selected object orbit )

 

[EarthlingX]

Ciclops : Dual Illuminated Enceladus

Two light sources illuminate Saturn's highly reflective moon Enceladus in this image featuring bright rings and the small moon Pandora in the foreground.

This view looks toward the Saturn-facing side of Enceladus (504 kilometers, 313 miles across). Most of the moon is dimly lit by sunlight reflected off Saturn. However, a thin crescent of the moon is lit by sunlight on the moon's leading hemisphere.

Pandora (81 kilometers, 50 miles across) is visible on the left of the image, orbiting beyond the thin F ring and illuminated by sunlight and Saturnshine.

This view looks toward the northern, sunlit side of the rings from just above the ringplane. Enceladus is more distant than the rings in this view. Pandora is on side of the rings nearest Cassini.

Is this Pandora ?

 

[satthralope]

Opening Pandora's box, are we? The pictures are beautiful, and very informative. Thank you for sharing your expertise; I can see from looking at your other threads that you do a great deal of this sort of thing.

 

[EarthlingX]

Opening Pandora's box, are we? The pictures are beautiful, and very informative. Thank you for sharing your expertise; I can see from looking at your other threads that you do a great deal of this sort of thing.

Thank you. My only excuse is, i like it, i can, and i'm, in most cases :roll: , allowed
I also try to be open to constructive criticism, and prefer checkable facts over opinions and believes, mainly because my imagination can go very wild, if i don't ground it. This forum helps.

It also gives me opportunity to learn about things that interest me, and about views from a different angle and perspective, than my limited personal, and not always knowledgeable, frame allows. In short : i'm a nosy bastard, and i try to keep my mind open, but not too open, which can sometimes be a tricky business.

Things are never good or bad by themselves, they are good or bad for something, or to somebody, and so on. It just hurts to be on the receiving side - but pain can also be a very good teacher - i just try not to repeat the same lessons too often, if it is avoidable ..

Let's not push this thread into 'Non-existent', there are much more images yet to come, and i hope not only from me :roll:

 

[3488]

Hi EarthlingX.

I love your pictures. I think between us, we could compile a valuable image resource that we could both back up too. :mrgreen:

I do think the irregular pototo shaped moon in high phase in your images is Panora. The shape of it looks about right.

Two images of Pandora below taken by Cassini on: Tuesday 6th September 2005.

Colour one from NASA that I have sharpened enlarged.

One I have worked on from a raw image, taken from a slightly different angle.

Andrew Brown.

 

[3488]

Some of my Enceladus efforts or more of my image spam!!!!!!!

Enceladus is Kronesynchronous, i.e keeps the same face turned towards Saturn. The rotatio of Enceladus matches the orbital period. Enceladus has an average global density of 1.61 G/CM3, meaning approx 50% ice 50% rock. Cassini tracking has shown Enceladus to be internally differentiated, i.e a rocky core, surrounded by an ice mantle & crust. Enceladus is the third densest of Saturn's moons after Titan & Dione.

Saturnlit & Sunlit Enceladus. Enceladus has a diameter of 524 KM, orbits Saturn at a distance of 238,000 KM & once every 1 Day, 8 hours & 34 minutes.

Saturn facing side of Enceladus.

Leading hemisphere of Enceladus. I think the Saturn facing side is illuminated.

Blocky icy terrain, cropped, sharpened,enlargement, approx 4 KM across on Enceladus.

Below, 40 KM section of Baghdad Sulcus.

Enceladus. 50 KM wide circular feature.

Looking north over south polar region of Enceladus.

Enceladus. Baghdad Sulcus.

Enceladus. Approx 3 KM long section of Baghdad Sulcus.

The leading hemisphere of the 524 KM diameter ice covered, highly evolved moon of Saturn.

Far north of the leading hemisphere of Enceladus. What is most apparent here is young evolved terrain on the left suddenly gives way to much older, cratered terrain on the right. The Ali Baba & Aladin Craters are clearly visible.

I have rotated the first two to look like a horizon.

Below a crescent Enceladus, with the south polar geysers visible, with the limb of Saturn to the lower left. Enceladus was closer to Cassini then Saturn.

I have enlarged, sharpened & contrast enhanced this image. It came out quite well I think.

Andrew Brown.

 

[EarthlingX]

:mrgreen:

 

[3488]

A bit more image spam from me!!!!!!!! :mrgreen:

A nice global view of Enceladus.

An area approx 100 KM wide. Compressional terrain in Enceladus.

An area only about 5 KM across on Enceladus. A cliff is visible, looks like a thrust fault & there are ice boulders in the low sun. A few extra details are faintly visible in reflected sunlight in the shadowed areas. Monday 11th August 2008.

Other areas only approx 5 KM wide on Enceladus aslo under a low sun & obtained on: Monday 11th August 2008.

Andrew Brown.

 

[silylene]

Andrew, looking at the last set of pictures of Enceladus, I note that the ice boulders are all similar sized. I would expect that the boulder size distribution should fit an inverse square rule. It doesn't look that way to me. Of course, the real small boulders won't image. But I still see many boulders of the same size, not many larger boulders, and not many boulders diminishing in size until they can't be imaged. Is this funny looking boulder size distribution real, or an effect of the image enhancement technique, or just my imagination?

I hope someone measures all the boulder sizes and does a Fourier frequency analysis of the distribution.

 

[3488]

Hi silylene,

I think you are right.

If they were boulders from impacts then yes, I would also expect them to show the usual, the smaller, the more numerous as we do on the Moon, Mars, Asteroids 243 Ida & 433 Eros.

I think here, they are produced from icy plate tectonics, gringing up ice in the fractures. If that is so, then perhaps they would only be of a certain size as the materials & the forces exerted would be very similar. That is only my theory, as tyou say, they need to be properly mapped & sized.

Another 5 km crop here with more boulders.

Andrew Brown.

 

[EarthlingX]

Andrew, looking at the last set of pictures of Enceladus, I note that the ice boulders are all similar sized. I would expect that the boulder size distribution should fit an inverse square rule. It doesn't look that way to me. Of course, the real small boulders won't image. But I still see many boulders of the same size, not many larger boulders, and not many boulders diminishing in size until they can't be imaged. Is this funny looking boulder size distribution real, or an effect of the image enhancement technique, or just my imagination?

I hope someone measures all the boulder sizes and does a Fourier frequency analysis of the distribution.

I'm trying to suppress my overflowing emotions about an 'eureka' moment, you gave me a wonderful idea how to look upon something completely different, quoting myself from another thread :

Just one, slightly off topic question :
- why would coalescing dust in the interstellar space require a star ?

Star is just a bit more of dust and gas in the same gravity well, or is there a known limit, how small can a thing be for the gas and dust to start gathering into something bigger, if temperature of the gas allows it ?

What's more, i think there is a relation between the size of a gravity well and it's commonality, or to put differently : as things get smaller, their number rises, from big to small, sort-of : galaxy cluster - galaxy group - galaxy - dwarf galaxy - star cluster - black hole - big stars - small stars - red dwarfs - planets - moons - asteroids - dust particles - gas, if i stop here.
I'm curious, how would this numbers look in a graph .. ?

Any idea which thread to harass with this ?

 

[EarthlingX]

A bit more image spam from me!!!!!!!! :mrgreen:

:mrgreen:

An area approx 100 KM wide. Compressional terrain in Enceladus.

Phobos ?

 

[EarthlingX]

SDC : Eau! 'Perrier Ocean' Could Give the Kick to Saturn Moon's Geysers

By Mike Wall
SPACE.com Senior Writer
posted: 05 October 2010
01:23 pm ET



The mysterious icy jets erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus may have their roots in a bubbly "Perrier ocean" flowing beneath the moon's frozen surface, a new study finds.

This salty subsurface sea could feed violent geysers on Enceladus, supplying them with water, gas, dust and heat before sinking back to the dark depths.

"The realization that there's a circulation system inside of Enceladus is something that's a new way of thinking," Dennis Matson, a researcher with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told reporters Monday (Oct. 4). "But as you know, Enceladus has unique properties." [New photo of Enceladus geysers.]

Matson discussed the Enceladus find at the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences meeting in Pasadena, Calif.

...

This image shows a new explanation for what feeds the geysers erupting from the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus: a subsurface "Perrier ocean" of slightly bubbly seawater. The graphic is laid over a picture of the geysers taken by the Cassini spacecraft in November 2009. It shows bubbles in seawater traveling through a passage in the ice crust to feed a geyser. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

...

 

[orienteer]

Hi guys;

Does anyone know how much heat is in Saturn shine? It seems to me that the Saturn facing side should get a more even amount of energy than the far side would during it's year, and that would drive a thermal migration, especially if there is liquid to carry the heat.

 

[3488]

Hi orienteer,

Very little, negligible. This was bourne out by the IR imagery of Mimas during the Mimas pass earlier this year. Saturnshine was not detected at all on the IR images, & Mimas orbits much closer to Saturn than does Enceladus.

Great thought though, tidal interactions on the Saturn facing side though would be stronger, as it is thought that Enceladus is in a tug of war between Saturn on one side, with Tethys & Dione on the other, a vastly reduced version of Jupiter's Io, in relation to Jupiter, Europa & Ganymede.

Whether or not there's a heating effect of the sweeping motion of Saturn's magnetosphere though any briny solution in the ice crust of Enceladus, I do not know (it would certainly generate a small current).

At the moment we do not know with 100% certainty that a subsurface ocean actually exists on Enceladus, like Europa, smallr pocts of rising water or even less dense, warmer diapirs can explain what we see, The Perrier Idea in EarthlingX's post is certainly plausible, but it is not as yet proven fact.

I am sorry if I come over as a bit sceptical, but with information to hand, we cannot be sure beyond a reasonable doubt.

Andrew Brown.