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The Fountains of Enceladus

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Mon Nov 28, 2005 07:32 PM
from the photo-goodness dept.
Space Science
EccentricAnomaly writes "Cassini has observed fountain-like plumes from the warm fractures near Enceladus' south pole. This confirms what had been suspected from an image taken last January. And seems to point to these cryo-volcanoes as being the primary source of Saturn's E-ring. There are also more images available from Cassini's raw images archive."
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Related Stories

[+] Cassini Finds Evidence of Water 167 comments
CheshireCatCO writes "Scientists working on the Cassini Mission think that they have found compelling evidence for the existence of liquid water at the south pole of the moon Enceladus. In addition to the obvious puzzles relating to how temperatures can be held high enough for liquid water, the presence of water, as well as the detection of organic molecules, opens up the possibility for life at Enceladus's south polar region. The findings are to appear in the 10 March issue of the journal, Science"
[+] Saturn's A-ring Soaks Up Debris Ejected from Nearby Moon 64 comments
ScienceDaily is running a story about the recently discovered interaction between Saturn's A-ring and one of Saturn's small moons, Enceladus. Thanks to data from Cassini, scientists have discovered that ejected matter from Enceladus' ice geysers is absorbed into the A-ring, where it is then trapped. We discussed the geysers themselves a few years ago, and researchers have been working since then to determine where the material was going. Quoting: "This is the latest surprising phenomenon associated with the ice geysers of Enceladus to be discovered or confirmed by Cassini scientists. Earlier, the geysers were found to be responsible for the content of the E-ring. Next, the whole magnetic environment of Saturn was found to be weighed down by the material spewing from Enceladus, which becomes plasma -- a gas of electrically charged particles. Now, Cassini scientists confirm that the plasma, which creates a donut-shaped cloud around Saturn, is being snatched by Saturn's A-ring, which acts like a giant sponge where the plasma is absorbed."
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  • very intriguing (Score:4, Insightful)

    by iggymanz (596061) on Monday November 28 2005, @07:35PM (#14134044)
    let's not launch a couple manned space missions and instead take the billions saved to plop a robot probe in one of these volcanoes to look for life in the underlying water layer.
    • We don't need to look for life in the volcanoes. These photos confirm what I've suspected all along: They're out there and they're ice fishing!

    • Re:very intriguing (Score:4, Informative)

      by IAmTheDave (746256) <basenamedave-sd&yahoo,com> on Monday November 28 2005, @08:06PM (#14134213) Homepage Journal
      ...to plop a robot probe...

      Oh sure, 'cause that's worked rather flawlessly in the past. Just ploppin them down.

    • No thanks.

      How about we use the same money to save whats left of our planet? AFAIK, we have at least a few intelligent lifeforms here.
      • You can do that for a few million dollars? If that's true you really do deserve a grant.

          I could trivially name fifty things which cost more than a space probe and contribute less.

          • Actually I just don't have the time or the inclination to engage in extended debate on nonsense like this.

            The Space Station, for one, pointlessly sucks up gigantic amounts of space science funding for no purpose whatsoever. You should like that one particularly, since cancelling it would involve keeping your eyes locked firmly on the ground.

            An enormous list of worthless pork-barrel projects could be made with very little effort.

            There's really not much point in debate however - if you can't understand the v
      • No thanks.

        How about we use the same money to save whats left of our planet? AFAIK, we have at least a few intelligent lifeforms here.

        This arguement is counter productive we already spend resources int hat direction. The amoutn we actually spend on space exploration and science is minicule compared to other ventures such as the military.
      • Ok, I'll bite. How? What's wrong with "what's left of this planet" that could be fixed for a few million dollars? Could you end world hunger? Cure AIDS? Prevent the inevitable extinction (again) of most life on the planet?

    • No manned space missions == less funding (Score:5, Insightful)

      by David Hume (200499) on Monday November 28 2005, @09:50PM (#14134687) Homepage
      let's not launch a couple manned space missions and instead take the billions saved to plop a robot probe in one of these volcanoes to look for life in the underlying water layer.
      I think you may be ignoring another effect of no (or to be more precise and fair to you, fewer) manned missions over time -- i.e., less political support for space exploration and lower funding.

      People will support a certain amount of funding for heroism, Star Trek, to boldly go... or to at least feel we are on the way there. They will pay far less to support inanimate objects in space. Boring... for most people.

      Perhaps, in the short run, the savings from eliminating, or limiting, manned flights would be greater than the loss of funding. I suspect over the long run it would be death.
       

      • Re:No manned space missions == less funding (Score:4, Interesting)

        by iggymanz (596061) on Monday November 28 2005, @11:54PM (#14135311)
        really?, I think the robotic exploration of mars and outer planets every bit as exciting as moon walks were. And no chance of astronauts being vaporized. Maybe we should put manned space missions on hold until we develop craft that aren't world's largest chemical bombs with low-end tactical nuclear yields. There's no scientific achievement that's been done by man in space that couldn't be done faster, better, cheaper, and safer by machine.
        • Not that any of the parents post isn't true, it is, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that there's a lot of people on here (me included) that would just about sell our souls to be able to take a ride on one of those bombs, risks be damned. Joe Sixpack isn't intrested in scientific discovery (I know, I live with a bunch of them). They like adventure (shuttle missions or especially something like Apollo) or pretty pictures that look nice on their desktop. And as to the "faster, better cheaper", it seems like

  • as the bard Homer would say: (Score:5, Funny)

    by jspoon (585173) on Monday November 28 2005, @07:37PM (#14134055)
    Mmmmmm. Fountains of enchiladas.

  • Amateur Analysis (Score:5, Interesting)

    by EccentricAnomaly (451326) on Monday November 28 2005, @07:40PM (#14134065) Homepage
    Since Cassini is so slow in releasing results to the general public, you may be interested in this discussion (including some neat image processing) by amateur astronomers: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showt opic=1729 [unmannedspaceflight.com] This site usually get a jump on the official Cassini channels of about a week.

    • Re:Amateur Analysis (Score:5, Informative)

      by CheshireCatCO (185193) on Monday November 28 2005, @07:58PM (#14134173) Homepage
      Pardon me, but Cassin is NOT slow to release its results. Some of these images came down in the past two *days*. And I'd like to note that they got posted to the JPL website almost instantly. That's actually rather unfair to us, since there's usually a one *year* propriatary period where the data are the kept by the people who put the work into designing, building, and operating the instrument. Thanks to JPL, anybody off the street can get up at 3 AM to grab the images of the website before we've woken up that morning, let alone gotten our coffees in.

      Of course, amateurs are not bound be either rules for peer-review to get published or by NASA's process for press-releases, so their results will often appear on the web sooner than the offical findings. But they should also be treated with a certain measure of skepticism. Also, remember that the images that JPL posts aren't scientific quality.

      • That's actually rather unfair to us, since there's usually a one *year* propriatary period where the data are the kept by the people who put the work into designing, building, and operating the instrument. Thanks to JPL, anybody off the street can get up at 3 AM to grab the images of the website before we've woken up that morning,

        What? Give the people who actually paid for the data equal access, why the nerve!

        Maybe if you (and I'm assuming you're somehow earning money by using this data) paid for it instead

        • Yeah, why should the people who didn't devote years of their lives and continue to devote 60-80 hours a week running the instrument be at a disadvantage? Reminds of that story about the chicken who wants to bake bread and no one will help her, but everyone wants to eat it afterward.

          The taxpayers have every right to the data. The question is, should they get it at the same time as the people who have spent years making sure that the data arrive at all? By comparison, are you going to insist that the data

          • If you want to head down this road, you're not going to get data at all. Scienists take a severe hit to their careers to PI an instrument like this. If they didn't get something back, like a period where they could have first pass at making discoveries in the data, you'd be hard-pressed to get anyone to build the things.

            Well, that's pure conjecture, as those people actually get paid for their work (with the possible exception of some grad students), and without taxpayer funding, they wouldn't have their car

            • Sure it's conjecture, but it's based on the data. If you poured several years of your life into building an instrument and weren't able to be the first to do anything with the data (or, more likely, were one of the *last*), you wouldn't do it. Academia is pretty viscious. You have be publishing or you're not going to get the job you want (or lose the one you have).

              By your logic, government contractors would build spacecraft/bridges/ships/whatever at cost with no mark-up. Because, you know, they're getti
          • Yeah, why should the people who didn't devote years of their lives and continue to devote 60-80 hours a week running the instrument be at a disadvantage?

            What would that disadvantage be? Missing the opportunity to be the first to write about something? Do you really believe that you are entitled to that?

            Since you are the one who knows WTF you are talking about, why would anyone care what joe shmo who's up at 3AM thinks about the pictures? Obviously he's too stupid to make any interesting discoveries anywa

      • Re:Amateur Analysis (Score:5, Interesting)

        by tetrahedrassface (675645) on Monday November 28 2005, @08:38PM (#14134349) Journal
        Im very proud of JPL, NASA, and everyone involved with this mission. And all of the other missions for that matter.
        Im also proud that the data is released very quickly, and openly.
        Its a good thing all around, and we in #space on freenode understand the sensitivities involved.
        I assume when you speak of the enthusiast compositions you are referring to the Huygens data?
        I understand that all non-official work should be treated with a dose of sceptisim, but some of the images produced by the channel were good enough to be used by the ESA.
        (#space irc.freenode.net)
        Don't take me the wrong way. I am a huge fan, and supporter and a member of the Saturn Outreach Campaign.
        In fact i hope you understand that us geeks are most likely your biggest supporters.
        We should be celebrating, not casting stones.
        Peace, good luck, and congrats!

        JPL is amazing,
        D
        • Oh, I welcome the amateur community's involvement. Lord knows they do great work and they keep the professionals on our toes, which is a good thing. But I think that in all fairness that JPL has slid too far in their direction at the moment, since the way that they release the data right now almost guarantees that the amateurs will be making waves about news finds before we have a chance to spot them, make sure we're right, and then issue a statement (through channels). Really, even something like a one-
      • Also, remember that the images that JPL posts aren't scientific quality.

        You got that right. IIRC, those are the images used in the "36% More Rock Ninjas Coming Out of the Earth than in Previous Decades" paper, presented in 1997.

        Explains why they were able to post it so quickly, too. After all, it would take a lot of care to actually get things like that right. Maybe even more than peer review would require, since that's mostly concerned with the text. I'm sure that they recycled. Especially since I've
      • Of course, amateurs are not bound be either rules for peer-review to get published or by NASA's process for press-releases, so their results will often appear on the web sooner than the offical findings. But they should also be treated with a certain measure of skepticism.

        Of course, you meant to say that all results should be treated with a certain measure of skepticism.

        Nullius in Verba and all that...

      • Then were are the results from Radar, Vims, etc? And ISS hoards their data releasing only the minimal trickle needed to keep NASA HQ off of their backs (to the point of degrading the official satellite ephemerides). The one year proprietary period you site is BS, if you read the Space Act that formed NASA, such a proprietary period is forbidden... and the instrument teams didn't pay for the spacecraft, in fact they were paid for their instruments and are paid to operate them, so they should release thei
        • ISS does not hold back the data to a trickle. We're archiving at the rate set by JPL. One year after the data were taken, they're in the PDS.

          Call it BS if you like, but the propriatary period is real and common practice with NASA missions. It's been part of every mission I can think of, anyway. The time and effort spent to design, build, and manage an instrument (let alone a mission) is HUGE. That's time out of a sciensist's productive time. If you let just anyone grab the data the instant that they'r

  • "hot spot"? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Amouth (879122) on Monday November 28 2005, @07:44PM (#14134092)
    hot spot "temperatures observed within this region reached as high as 110 Kelvin (-260 Fahrenheit)."

    ok.. now if i remember correctly 0 K means that not even the eletrns move.. and 273 K is where water freezes.. so this is more than half way there and this is the hot spot.. what is the cold spot like?

    i am not trolling i am jsut currious.. maybe they jsut do werid things when it gets bloddy cold but being able to have eruptions that trow water out of orbit seems a little crazy.
    • Well, all things are relative, and warmer than damn cold, even it's almost-damn-cold, is still warmer. Beyond that, I'm assuming that any substantial difference in temperature are going to produce pretty interesting effects.
    • its not all that scary as long as your gravitiy well is shallow and your atmosphere is thin.

      This has nothing really to do with the temperature per se, its more like a side effect.

      Also, considering that the background of the universe is only 2.73k, 110k deserves the designation "warm".
      I mean, its even warm enough to evaporate nitrogen...
      (also, at 0K everything still has the zero point energy, i.e. the 0.5h_bar you can never shave off those pesky harmonic osszillators. Thats for example the reason why helium
    • Considering that Enceladus has an albedo of nearly 1, it's surface temperature is really, really low. (An albedo of 0.95 gives a surface temperature of 42 K.) So 110 is actually pretty impressive. And a perfectly black body at that distance should have a surface temperature of 90 K.
        • T = 285 K ((1-albedo)/distance^2)^(1/4), where distance is in AU. This assumes a "fast" rotator, but it's a pretty good approximation for a moon. Also, it sort of assumes that the moon doesn't spend a lot of time in the planet's shadow. And it is, of coruse, a globally averaged temperature. The poles should actually be a lot colder.

    • Ammonia hydrate (Score:5, Informative)

      by amightywind (691887) on Monday November 28 2005, @09:17PM (#14134519) Journal

      Pure H2O is frozen rock solid at 110K. But H2O-NH3 ices are not. Try mixing 50% ammonia and 50% water together and putting them in the freezer. The mixture will not freeze but will just become more viscous. Low temperature mixtures of H2O, CO, CH4, or N2 have similarly weird properties. Check this [ucl.ac.uk] out. The compositions of Saturn's icy moons have not been well established. But indirect evidence like eruptions on Enceladus, or cometary outbursts, suggest exotic icy chemistry.

  • "If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes..."

  • I you think The Fountains of Enceladus are cool (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2005, @07:45PM (#14134106)
    Wait till they get pictures of The Geysers of Uranus.

  • E-ring (Score:3, Funny)

    by game kid (805301) on Monday November 28 2005, @08:05PM (#14134208) Homepage
    This confirms what had been suspected from an image taken last January. And seems to point to these cryo-volcanoes as being the primary source of Saturn's E-ring.

    I always thought those Defense Department guys [nbc.com] were out of this world. I never thought they were from an outer planet [wikipedia.org].

  • F ring a spiral! Read all about it! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Darius Jedburgh (920018) on Monday November 28 2005, @08:20PM (#14134268)
    All this news about Saturn and no mention of the news that the F ring is not a ring but actually a spiral [space.com]!

  • Sounds like an Arthur C Clarke novel (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sounds like a good title for an Arthur C Clarke novel.
  • What was interesting to me was this diagram:

    http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image -details.cfm?imageID=1681/ [nasa.gov]

    In JPL's warm-spot modelling for Enceladus there is an undersurface ocean heated by one of the two now-familiar forces of tidal heating or radiological decay heating (though the former seems more likely).

    So the statement goes: "where there is liquid water, there could be life". Do we have another Europa on our hands here?

  • "False-color" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NthDegree256 (219656) on Tuesday November 29 2005, @12:40AM (#14135493)
    One thing I'm constantly curious about is the degree to which "false color" should be taken. I understand that the purpose of false-coloring is to enhance details and make certain features visible that would otherwise be imperceptible (outside of the visible band of light, too faint, etc.) but I also want to know what these bodies would actually look like to the naked human eye.

    Obviously, processed and filtered images are important, and very fascinating (case in point, many of the gorgeous images of the sun,) but it also diminishes the awe, in my mind, to look at a photo of a nebula or moon and realize, "this is not what it actually looks like."
    • am annoyed by the constant whining about the use of false-colors.
      Want to see what it really looks like? A very dark blob with nearly no discernable details because its so dark.

    • I can vividly remember the first time I got to use a "big" telescope - it was the 24.5" scope at Goldendale. I'd been reading "Sky & Telescope" for years, and had made frequent use of a very low-grade refractor. Finally I was going to see deep-space objects they way they looked in the glossy color photos. I dialed in the Ring Nebula (M57), put my eye to the lens . . . and saw a dirty smudge that looked like someone forgot to clean the eyepiece. When I scanned the scope slightly, however, the smudge s

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