Enceladus' Water Vapor Plume
@article{Hansen2006EnceladusWV, title={Enceladus' Water Vapor Plume}, author={Candice J. Hansen and Larry W. Esposito and A. Ian F. Stewart and Joshua E. Colwell and Amanda R. Hendrix and Wayne R. Pryor and Donald E. Shemansky and Robert A. West}, journal={Science}, year={2006}, volume={311}, pages={1422 - 1425} }
The Cassini spacecraft flew close to Saturn's small moon Enceladus three times in 2005. Cassini's UltraViolet Imaging Spectrograph observed stellar occultations on two flybys and confirmed the existence, composition, and regionally confined nature of a water vapor plume in the south polar region of Enceladus. This plume provides an adequate amount of water to resupply losses from Saturn's E ring and to be the dominant source of the neutral OH and atomic oxygen that fill the Saturnian system.
451 Citations
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We hypothesize that active tectonic processes in the south polar terrain of Enceladus, the 500-kilometer-diameter moon of Saturn, are creating fractures that cause degassing of a clathrate reservoir…
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Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) detected 3 to 7 gigawatts of thermal emission from the south polar troughs at temperatures up to 145 kelvin or higher, making Enceladus only the third known solid planetary body—after Earth and Io—that is sufficiently geologically active for its internal heat to be detected by remote sensing.
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The geysers comprised of largely water vapor and icy particles feeding the broader plume over the south pole of Enceladus constitute a unique opportunity. That flow of material, moderated by several…
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Observations of Saturn's satellite Enceladus using Cassini's Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer instrument were obtained during three flybys in 2005, and upper limits of 140 kelvin are derived for the temperatures in the tiger stripes.
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