Internal Melting and the Shape of Enceladus

Details Internal Melting and the Shape of Enceladus Internal Melting and the Shape of Enceladus

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.1803c&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #18.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.514

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

If the thermal energy radiating from the south polar area of Enceladus is supplied over a limited area at the base of the ice shell, melting of a localized pool of water is favored over convection if the ice begins in conductive equilibrium. We show through numerical modeling that a melt pool produced by the observed excess heat flux from the south polar region is stable for long periods of time without turning into a global ocean. As the model approaches equilibrium, inflow of ice from the sides of the melt pool and subsequent melting above the center of the thermal source is balanced by freezing around the outside base of the pool. The observed shape of Enceladus can be fit by a differentiated body (core density < 2700 kg m-3) in hydrostatic equilibrium, when the effect of melting the ice shell is taken into account, since this melting produces a large pit centered on the south pole. Reported deviations from the best fit ellipsoid (high at 50°S, low at the south pole) can also be fit by this model, and are sensitive to the shape of the heating profile applied to the base of the ice shell. The large surface pit at the south pole produced in our model represents contraction of mass toward the center of Enceladus, producing a significant negative gravity anomaly (calculated by integrating gravity over our melting model), which may serve to reorient Enceladus and place the active region at the south pole. The surface subsidence over the localized melt pool may also explain the sudden change in surface geology around the pole, and will produce compression radial to the pole.

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