But now scientists believe the vast water reservoir is coming from an ocean between the moon’s rocky core and icy crust.
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New data analysis from NASA’s Cassini mission confirms the presence of a global ocean beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. It’s kind of a like a giant chocolate cherry where the cherry’s the core, the liquid surrounding it is the ocean and the crust is the chocolate (for those candy-challenged among us).
There is a remaining mystery however, with researchers still somewhat baffled as to how this ocean does not freeze with early suggestions raising the possibility of warming tidal forces from Saturn’s own gravity. They carefully mapped the positions of features on Enceladus – mostly craters – across hundreds of images, in order to measure changes in the moon’s rotation with extreme precision.As a result, they found Enceladus has a tiny, but measurable wobble as it orbits Saturn. Throw in the moon’s asymmetry and the “jets” near the south pole that have often been seen venting particles into space and there’s plenty to ponder about the Enceladus behaviour.
The confirmation was made using research from Cassini – a spacecraft that arrived at Saturn in 2004 and has spent the last decade studying the planet and its many moons.
“If the floor and core have been rigidly related, the core would offer a lot lifeless weight the wobble can be far smaller than we observe it to be”, Matthew Tiscareno, a researcher on the SETI Institute and a member of the Cassini science staff, .
Their work was published this week in the journal Icarus.
“This was a tough drawback that required years of observations, and calculations involving a various assortment of disciplines, however we’re assured we lastly obtained it proper”, stated Peter Thomas, the research’s lead writer. Models of Enceladus’ interior indicate that it must have a layer of liquid in between the surface and the core.
The Cassini spacecraft launched in 1997, and has been orbiting and photographing Saturn since mid-2004, a mission that has provided scientists with seven years’ worth of images.
Enceladus is considered to be one of the top spots to look for life in our solar system, and the new findings certainly don’t hurt its case. “Cassini has been exemplary in this regard”.
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Cassini will dive though Enceladus’ active plume of icy material at a height of just 30 miles (49 km) on October 28. The Cassini imaging operations center is based at Space Science Institute.
