Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.p23b1368b&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #P23B-1368
Other
6005 Atmospheres (1060), 6200 Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects, 6207 Comparative Planetology, 6210 Comets (6023), 6280 Saturnian Satellites
Scientific paper
The discovery of icy plumes emanating from Saturn's moon Enceladus by the Cassini spacecraft has raised questions about the cometary nature of this small satellite. The release of gas and dust from cometary nuclei is restricted to "jets" or plumes also and this activity has been observed in comets at distances much further than Saturn's orbit, including comet-like activity and a resolved coma of the Centaur Chiron. Enceladus and Chiron have sizes that are much larger than cometary nuclei but their atmospheres are still largely unbound, similar to the exospheres of comets. With Chiron, Enceladus may represent a transitional object in this respect, intermediate to the tightly bound, thin atmospheres typical of planets and large satellites and the greatly extended atmospheres in free expansion typical of cometary comae. Measurements of the neutral and ion composition of the plumes reveal the presence of water group species, nitrogen-bearing molecules, and other species that have been found in comets. The nature of the volatile materials in Enceladus may also bear similarities with ideas of cometary ices. In other respects, the large size of Enceladus relative to comets and the presence of Saturn and its magnetosphere nearby, brings into question the validity of applying scaling laws to cometary results in order to understand the environment surrounding Enceladus. In addition, release mechanisms for the icy grains and gases at Enceladus, including liquid water mixtures below the cold, icy surface, are not thought to be applicable to comets. These issues and others are discussed as we offer a cometary perspective on our current understanding of Enceladus. Acknowledgements. We acknowledge funding and support from the NASA Cassini Mission, contract NAS71407NMO710023.
Boice Daniel C.
Goldstein Raymond
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