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Detection of phosphates originating from Enceladus's ocean
Postberg, Frank; Sekine, Yasuhito; Glein, Christopher R. +13 more
Saturn's moon Enceladus harbours a global1 ice-covered water ocean2,3. The Cassini spacecraft investigated the composition of the ocean by analysis of material ejected into space by the moon's cryovolcanic plume4-9. The analysis of salt-rich ice grains by Cassini's Cosmic Dust Analyzer10 enabled inferenc…
Macromolecular organic compound s from the depths of Enceladus
Postberg, Frank; Trieloff, Mario; Schmidt, Jürgen +18 more
Saturn's moon Enceladus harbours a global water ocean, which lies under an ice crust and above a rocky core. Through warm cracks in the crust a cryo-volcanic plume ejects ice grains and vapour into space that contain materials originating from the ocean. Hydrothermal activity is suspected to occur deep inside the porous core, powered by tidal diss…
Cassini’s 13 years of stunning Saturn science — in pictures
Witze, Alexandra
As the mission speeds towards its conclusion, Nature takes a look at what researchers have learnt about the planet’s moons, rings and tempest-filled skies.
Ongoing hydrothermal activities within Enceladus
Postberg, Frank; Altobelli, Nicolas; Sekine, Yasuhito +12 more
Detection of sodium-salt-rich ice grains emitted from the plume of the Saturnian moon Enceladus suggests that the grains formed as frozen droplets from a liquid water reservoir that is, or has been, in contact with rock. Gravitational field measurements suggest a regional south polar subsurface ocean of about 10 kilometres thickness located beneat…
Curtain eruptions from Enceladus' south-polar terrain
Spitale, Joseph N.; Hurford, Terry A.; Rhoden, Alyssa R. +2 more
Observations of the south pole of the Saturnian moon Enceladus revealed large rifts in the south-polar terrain, informally called `tiger stripes', named Alexandria, Baghdad, Cairo and Damascus Sulci. These fractures have been shown to be the sources of the observed jets of water vapour and icy particles and to exhibit higher temperatures than the …
Planetary science: Enceladus' hot springs
Tobie, Gabriel
The detection of silicon-rich particles originating from Saturn's moon Enceladus suggests that water-rock interactions are currently occurring inside it -- the first evidence of ongoing hydrothermal activity beyond Earth. See Letter p.207
HCN ice in Titan's high-altitude southern polar cloud
Maltagliati, Luca; Vinatier, Sandrine; de Kok, Remco J. +2 more
Titan's middle atmosphere is currently experiencing a rapid change of season after northern spring arrived in 2009 (refs 1, 2). A large cloud was observed for the first time above Titan's southern pole in May 2012, at an altitude of 300 kilometres. A temperature maximum was previously observed there, and condensation was not expected for any of Ti…
An observed correlation between plume activity and tidal stresses on Enceladus
Sotin, C.; Brown, R. H.; Baines, K. H. +6 more
Saturn's moon Enceladus emits a plume of water vapour and micrometre-sized ice particles from a series of warm fissures located near its south pole. This geological activity could be powered or controlled by variations in the tidal stresses experienced by Enceladus as it moves around its slightly eccentric orbit. The specific mechanisms by which t…
A rigid and weathered ice shell on Titan
Iess, L.; Zebker, H.; Nimmo, F. +1 more
Several lines of evidence suggest that Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has a global subsurface ocean beneath an outer ice shell 50 to 200 kilometres thick. If convection is occurring, the rigid portion of the shell is expected to be thin; similarly, a weak, isostatically compensated shell has been proposed to explain the observed topography. Here we…
The domination of Saturn's low-latitude ionosphere by ring `rain'
Baines, K. H.; Jones, G. H.; Cowley, S. W. H. +5 more
Saturn's ionosphere is produced when the otherwise neutral atmosphere is exposed to a flow of energetic charged particles or solar radiation. At low latitudes the solar radiation should result in a weak planet-wide glow in the infrared, corresponding to the planet's uniform illumination by the Sun. The observed electron density of the low-latitude…