Larger Icy Satellites

Details Larger Icy Satellites Larger Icy Satellites

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.1628v&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #16.28

Mathematics

Logic

Scientific paper

Outer planets exploration in the past three decades has revealed a diverse host of large icy bodies undergoing a myriad of geological and chemical processes remarkably similar yet alien to those occurring on Earth. The most active of these, including the Galilean satellites and Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan, are obvious targets for future robotic exploration. The broader host of satellites larger than 100 km should also figure into NASA's goals, owing to their abundance and insights they offer into past and present geological processes, Solar System formation and planetary evolution. Included in this class are the enigmatic objects Dione, with its smooth planes and fractured regions; Mimas with its giant crater Herschel; Iapetus, which has an odd shape and a mysterious equatorial ridge; Miranda, which has been subjected to drastic geologic reconfiguration; and Triton, with its geyser-like plumes. Many bodies in this class are of sufficient size and density to have hosted internal liquid water oceans in their early history, or even in the present epoch, making them targets of astrobiological interest.
We discuss the importance of larger icy satellites to NASA's objectives, their importance for understanding, geology, chemistry and dynamics in the Solar System, and observational and experimental challenges that need to be addressed in the next decade.

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