Compositional profile of the Enceladian ice plume from in situ measurements

Details Compositional profile of the Enceladian ice plume from in situ measurements Compositional profile of the Enceladian ice plume from in situ measurements

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufm.p33a1565s&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #P33A-1565

Biology

[0406] Biogeosciences / Astrobiology And Extraterrestrial Materials, [5759] Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets / Rings And Dust, [6015] Planetary Sciences: Comets And Small Bodies / Dust, [6280] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Saturnian Satellites

Scientific paper

Data obtained by the Cassini spacecraft during recent close flybys of Enceladus will be presented. Prior compositional measurements of E ring grains with Cassini's Cosmic Dust Analyser (CDA) suggested salt-rich water as the dominant source of Enceladus' famous plume. Although the E ring dust population is dominated by ice particles stemming from Enceladus it was unclear if their composition might have been altered in comparison to freshly ejected particles. Moreover, it was not clear if the populations ejected into the E ring are not prone to selection effects (e.g. that certain species preferably escape the moon whereas others preferably fall back). During 2008 and 2009 Cassini passed deep into the plumes on several occasions, allowing the CDA team to analyse the compositions of freshly ejected plume particles for the first time. From this information a compositional profile of the plume has been inferred. The compositional grain types found within the E ring also dominate the plume. However, the profile along Cassini’s trajectory shows strong variations, in particular a steep increase of salt rich grains close to Enceladus’ surface. The measurement shows that salt rich particles indeed dominate the mass production of the Enceladian dust plumes. Our refined numerical modelling, including gas and dust dynamics and production, successfully reproduces the measured compositional profile of the plume. The best fit requires supersonic, collimated jets as well as a slow diffuse plume component which is in good agreement with recent UVIS observations. Our results can only be reproduced with a liquid water plume source.

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