Heat flow on Enceladus
Nature Geoscience
January 11, 2010

The large jets of water vapour that are observed only in the southern polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus can be explained as a manifestation of a waning event of catastrophic renewal of the moon’s crust. Research, published online this week in Nature Geoscience, suggests that such episodes of strong convection could also have played a part in shaping the surfaces of other icy satellites in the Solar System.
Craig O’Neill and Francis Nimmo simulated convection of Enceladus’s ice mantle. They find that occasional episodes during which parts of Enceladus’s ice mantle are recycled into the moon’s interior could explain the present activity and heat loss in the body’s South Polar Region, as well as the heavily deformed surface observed on Enceladus. They estimate that catastrophic convection events occur every 100 to 1,000 million years and last about 10 million years.
The authors conclude that we are currently observing Enceladus in one of its rare phases of resurfacing that make up only about 1-10% of the time.
doi: 10.1038/ngeo731
Research highlights
-
Jan 22
Palaeontology: Fossil burrows point to colonization of ancient seafloor by giant marine wormsScientific Reports
-
Jan 21
Climate change: Lake heatwaves likely to increase by 2100Nature
-
Jan 15
Environment: Seagrass meadows may facilitate marine plastic removal from the seaScientific Reports
-
Jan 15
Planetary Science: Mercury may have shrunk less than previously thoughtCommunications Earth&Environment
-
Jan 13
Environment: Polyester fibres found to be widespread in the ArcticNature Communications
-
Dec 23
Planetary science: Over 100,000 new craters identified on the MoonNature Communications