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Liquid water on Enceladus from observations of ammonia and 40Ar in the plume
Young, D. T.; Ip, W. -H.; Lunine, J. I. +13 more
Jets of water ice from surface fractures near the south pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus produce a plume of gas and particles. The source of the jets may be a liquid water region under the ice shell-as suggested most recently by the discovery of salts in E-ring particles derived from the plume-or warm ice that is heated, causing dissociation of…
Sodium salts in E-ring ice grains from an ocean below the surface of Enceladus
Kempf, S.; Postberg, F.; Srama, R. +5 more
Saturn's moon Enceladus emits plumes of water vapour and ice particles from fractures near its south pole, suggesting the possibility of a subsurface ocean. These plume particles are the dominant source of Saturn's E ring. A previous in situ analysis of these particles concluded that the minor organic or siliceous components, identified in many ic…
Saturn's rotation period from its atmospheric planetary-wave configuration
Read, P. L.; Dowling, T. E.; Schubert, G.
The rotation period of a gas giant's magnetic field (called the System III reference frame) is commonly used to infer its bulk rotation. Saturn's dipole magnetic field is not tilted relative to its rotation axis (unlike Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune), so the surrogate measure of its long-wavelength (kilometric) radiation is currently used to fix the…
Global circulation as the main source of cloud activity on Titan
Sotin, Christophe; Barnes, Jason W.; Le Mouélic, Stéphane +11 more
Clouds on Titan result from the condensation of methane and ethane and, as on other planets, are primarily structured by circulation of the atmosphere. At present, cloud activity mainly occurs in the southern (summer) hemisphere, arising near the pole and at mid-latitudes from cumulus updrafts triggered by surface heating and/or local methane sour…
Storms in the tropics of Titan
Brown, M. E.; Schaller, E. L.; Roe, H. G. +1 more
Methane clouds, lakes and most fluvial features on Saturn's moon Titan have been observed in the moist high latitudes, while the tropics have been nearly devoid of convective clouds and have shown an abundance of wind-carved surface features like dunes. The presence of small-scale channels and dry riverbeds near the equator observed by the Huygens…
No sodium in the vapour plumes of Enceladus
Johnson, Robert E.; Dougherty, Michele K.; Schneider, Nicholas M. +5 more
The discovery of water vapour and ice particles erupting from Saturn's moon Enceladus fuelled speculation that an internal ocean was the source. Alternatively, the source might be ice warmed, melted or crushed by tectonic motions. Sodium chloride (that is, salt) is expected to be present in a long-lived ocean in contact with a rocky core. Here we …
Planetary science: Enceladus with a grain of salt
Spencer, John
The observation that water plumes erupt from cracks on Saturn's moon Enceladus has fired speculation about a possible subsurface ocean. The latest searches for sodium salts point to the existence of such an ocean.