Enceladus, One of Saturn's Moons, Studied
Posted on: Thursday, 14 December 2006, 15:00 CST
U.S. scientists are proposing an alternative theory to explain a giant plume seen by the Cassini spacecraft last year on Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons.
Astronomers speculate the plume contains water erupting from shallow depths beneath the moon's icy surface.
But the new study's lead author, planetary scientist Professor Susan Kieffer of the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana, and colleagues disagree.
A problem with this model, Kieffer said, is 10 percent of the plume consists of the gases carbon dioxide, nitrogen and methane. You might get a carbon dioxide-driven liquid geyser there, but you can't put this much nitrogen and methane into liquid water at the low pressures found inside Enceladus.
Kieffer and colleagues propose the plume's gases are dissolved in a clathrate reservoir under the south polar water ice cap. The clathrate model allows an environment 80- to 100 degrees Celsius colder than liquid water, with a plume emanating from clathrates, rather than liquid water reservoirs.
Keiffer and colleagues Xinli Lu, Craig Bethke and Steve Marshak of the University of Illinois; John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute; and Alexandra Navrotsky at the University of California-Davis, report their study in the journal Science.
Source: United Press International
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