what in the hell does this have to do with Bush? how can you spin this like that? <br /><br />stick to your LaGrange points, mikee <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /><br /><br />
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<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>But how did this get into the mainstream news, and why now and not<br />Feb. 15?<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Because the scientists involved have just published a paper on the subject. Nothing mysterious or conspiracy-laden about that. Let's keep the political musings out of this thread, okay? Let's talk Enceladus, not Bush.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em> -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
More from Carolyn P. :<br /><br /><font color="yellow">March 9, 2006,<br /><br /><br />Dear Friends and Colleagues,<br /><br />Tomorrow, the Cassini Imaging Team's report on Enceladus will be published in the journal SCIENCE, along with reports from other Cassini instrument teams.<br /><br />What we have discovered about the story of Enceladus is thrilling beyond<br />imagination: more heat emerging from the south polar region, per square meter, than from the Earth, and, possibly, subterranean organic-rich bodies of liquid water only tens of meters beneath the south polar terrain.<br /><br />If we did nothing else, these findings alone would have made the Cassini mission worthwhile.<br /><br />Go to...<br /><br /> http://ciclops.org<br /><br />... for more information.<br /><br />I'm attaching below our press release that went out earlier today.<br /><br />And watch the major networks (CBS, ABS, NBC) tonight and CNN American Morning tomorrow morning, all of which are featuring Enceladus in their lineup.<br /><br /><br />Enjoy!<br /><br /><br />Carolyn Porco<br />Cassini Imaging Team Leader<br />Director/CICLOPS<br />Space Science Institute<br />Boulder, CO<br /><br />===============================================================================<br /><br />MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE<br />CASSINI IMAGING CENTRAL LABORATORY FOR OPERATIONS (CICLOPS) SPACE SCIENCE INSTITUTE, BOULDER, COLORADO http://ciclops.org media@ciclops.org<br /><br />Preston Dyches (720) 974-5859<br />CICLOPS/Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo.<br /><br />CASSINI IMAGES OF ENCELADUS SUGGEST GEYSERS ERUPT LIQUID WATER AT THE MOON’S SOUTH POLE<br /><br />Images returned from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft have yielded evidence that the geologically young south polar region of Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus may possess reservoirs of near-surface liquid water that erupt to form geysers of the kind found in Yellowstone National Park.<br /><br />This finding and others ar</font>
I like Carolyn's other comments also from the CICLOPS web site:<br /><br /><i>"Gathering all the evidence and steeling ourselves for the `shockwave spread 'round the world', we find ourselves staring at the distinct possibility that we may have on Enceladus subterranean environments capable of supporting life. We may have just stumbled upon the Holy Grail of modern day planetary exploration. It doesn't get any more exciting than this.<br /><br />A great deal more analysis and further exploration with Cassini must ensue before this implication becomes anything more than a suggestion. But at the moment, the prospects are staggering. Enceladus may have just taken center stage as the body in our solar system, outside the Earth, having the most easily accessible bodies of organic-rich water and, hence, significant biological potential."</i>
Been watching Nasa TV since this morning, stunned they could'nt be bothered to run a press meeting for this!??
Don't see this posted yet, but coming from another scientist who stated some of the interior heating may well be from a lopsided core.
I've checked NASA TV periodically also, and all I've seen so far is more shuttle / ISS coverage... <img src="/images/icons/mad.gif" /> <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /><br /><br />The NASA TV web site lists Cassini coverage through the afternoon today on the media channel, but not on the public channel.<br /><br />The news is getting other media coverage now though as the day / week goes on. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />
Would be something if Enceladus turns out to be a/the cradle of life in the solar system. I recall reading of the interior heating on the moon (Enceladus) has been going on for billions of years. I sure hope we make a journey back soon to sort the life questions (amongst others) out.
This is just the greatest stuff ever. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> I'm really glad for the Cassini Team. Kudos!!!<br /><br />I know it's just a wild wish, but gods would it be sweet to get a JIMO type mission out there, and soon.<br /><br />It's almost prophetic that Arthur C. Clarke used the Saturnian system as the basis for 2001: A Space Odyssey <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>
<font color="yellow">Don't see this posted yet, but coming from another scientist who stated some of the interior heating may well be from a lopsided core. </font><br /><br />Link please?<br /><br />As you may remember, and I could post links, I proposed exactly this concept about 6 months ago on unmannedspacecraft.com, and few months ago on this forum.<br /><br />No one on either fora really bought into my proposal (still don't know why, but it never got the consideration I thought it deserved except from Riekel), but I still think a lopsided core is the simplest possible explanation for the unusual heating, and the localized heating. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>
<i>"Finally, perhaps a closer look with thermal instruments VIMS and CIRS can give us more info - like a lucky shot of a geyser in the process (probably unlikely) of erupting.... hey, thats all I want for christmas."</i><br /><br />Well, they've already photographed the geysers in the process of erupting, so why not again on another subsequent pass (along with thermal readings, etc.)? I'm looking forward to the close flyby coming in 2008...
Wow!<br /><br />Cassini images of Enceladus suggest geysers erupt liquid water at the moon's south pole-- <i>EurekAlert</i><br />
<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I could post links, I proposed exactly this concept about 6 months ago on unmannedspacecraft.com, and few months ago on this forum.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote>These links would certainly make fascinating reading in view of the images posted on this thread (I haven't gotten to todays press conference yet, it's not on today's Space.com but will be tomorrow, I'm quite sure). (Note, not a challenge, just curiosity. Hicup's word is good enough {in spite of some FreeSpace spats} So is yours, for that matter). I've been running around all day & evening.<br /><br />I would also urge the other poster to provide the link.<br /><br />There is no sign of Lagrange objects crashing on Enceladus, and I wonder if maybe they sank and formed two rockpiles on the core of Enceladus? This is something I've been keeping track of. I was not particularly surprised that there would be some process that erased the surface of Enceladus.<br /><br />It looks like this moon has lost a great deal of mass over the years. Somebody calculated some time ago that Saturn's rings should only last a hundred million years or so, but they're still there. They must be continuously regenerated. Now we know how.<br /><br />Also, the Lagrangian moons of Dionne and Tethys are much smaller than they should be. I think the originals are gone and have been replaced by material bleeding from Enceladus.<br /><br />I'm going to really enjoy reading about somebody who posted an idea here and it turned out that he was Right. Thank you for having the guts to post here.
Dragon04, Saturn was the destination in the original 2001 story, but Kubrick found the ring system too difficult to film convincingly, so he switched it to Jupiter.<br /> It turned out well anyway with Europa having a subsurface ocean, which was a key part of the plot in 2010.<br /><br /><br /> Bob Clark <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>
<font color="yellow">I wonder if Cassini's trajectory can be slightly tweaked to fly closer, right over the south pole area;</font><br /><br />I seem to recall a course tweaking in the works.
While I agree that the energy source is very important, I disagree that the enery source is more important than the find of liquird water. There are heat sources on other moons (Io and maybe others) and maybe planets (Venus? Mars? Jupiter?), but until now, there has NEVER been confirmed liquid water on any other body in the solar system. I think that is an amazing discovery.
Thank you very, very much, riekel.<br /><br />Here is my idea about why the core of Enceladus might be lumpy or bumpy.<br /><br />I believe that objects have formed at every L4 and L5 point in the solar system. I've been thinking this for over two decades.<br /><br />I was stunned by the images of Uranus' moon Miranda from the Yoyager flyby. I've got that image from Wikipedia posted below. Click on the link if that image hasn't been approved yet.<br /><br />Notice the structures at about 2 o'clock and 8 o'clock. I think these are the crash sites of the Uranus/Miranda Lagrangians. Such objects would have little energy with respect to Uranus since they orbited at the same altitude as Miranda. Thus their impact velocity was about the escape velocity from Miranda, which is kind of slow.<br /><br />Enceladus today isn't much bigger than Miranda, although it must have shrunk some from all that water escaping from the geysers. Still, the impact from the Lagrangians was probably not enough to cause them to explode. Instead, they sank to the bottom and the rock part is now on two (not one, remember, there are two "stable" (no, they're not stable after all, remember it's the four body problem, not the three body problem) piles on the core of Enceladus.<br /><br />I think this accounts for the asymetrical core and the enhanced tidal heating.<br /><br />If there was just one pile, it would line up with Saturn and there wouldn't be as much heating, if any.
My thanks also to silylene.<br /><br />OK, why is the heat from Enceladus escaping from the pole of the moon? This is very simple. As Enceladus orbits Saturn, it also rotates about it's axis. It's rotation rate is the same as it's orbital period, 1.4 days according to Wikipedia.*/spelling edit/*<br /><br />Because it's sychronous, it's easy to forget that moons in general are in fact spinning about an axis. But they are.<br /><br />With a low viscosity fluid, water + some impurities, surrounding the core of Enceladus, the colder water is thrown to the equator by the axial spin, and the heated water concentrates at the spin axis. The Lagrangian rubble piles discussed above happen to be a little south of Enceladus' core's equator.<br /><br />We'll see when Cassini makes a few more flybys of Enceladus.<br /><br />I did not expect to find any evidence for my pet hypothesis at Enceladus. I did expect it at Neptune, specifically at the object now named Proteus. I sent a handwritten letter to JPL predicting the features found at the six o'clock and twelve o'clock positions. It was tremendous fun looking at the Live Images from Neptune:
I am hopeful that careful analysis of the trajectory after the next close pass to Enceladus could tell us whether the core is off-center or lopsided.<br /><br />Reikel, thanks for the old link to the prior Enceladus thread (and yes that was a good thread). I found this old post, which now seems so appropo:<br /><br /><font color="yellow">As I understand it, the temperature from the IR measurement is the average temperature measured over the entire measurement area. The 110K may not be the exact temperature of the fissure; actually it's just one knowledgable person's estimate. All we do know is that the average of the area of the hot fissure and the area of the surrounding cold ice surface was found to be 91K. <br /><br />So I will make an estimate too.... <br />If the 5% of the area in the box is occupied by a fissure at a balmy 300K, and the 95% of the area of the box surrounding surface is a frigid 80K, then the average temperature seen by the detector = 0.05*300 + 0.95*80 = 91K. <br /><br />In my estimate, I assumed 5% of the fissure was actually open and shedding heat (this assumption made my numbers look good! Actually I wanted to illustrate that there might actually be some significant heat source if it is small and localized in the center of a cracked ice surface.) </font>http://uplink.space.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=sciastro&Number=151667&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=9&vc=1<br /><br />(yes, I have many out-of-the box ideas, and sometimes they even turn up right. Planetary Science would have been fun if I had pursued that career instead of microlithography. We should discuss chemistry or imaging science someday, if you want some wild ideas that turned up right.) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>
in that the entire surface of Enceladus is young and exhibits relatively uniform tiger striping and/or resurfacing throughout, the geysers observed may be happening over the entire body at differing times or cycles. and what is observed today is merely the current cycle of local activity.
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