Interior Structures of Enceladus and Mimas: Implications from Their Densities and Equilibrium Shapes

Details Interior Structures of Enceladus and Mimas: Implications from Their Densities and Equilibrium Shapes Interior Structures of Enceladus and Mimas: Implications from Their Densities and Equilibrium Shapes

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.2401s&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #24.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.521

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The dichotomy between the surfaces of the small Saturnian satellites Mimas and Enceladus is still not well understood. Whereas the heavily cratered surface of Mimas may indicate a general lack of geologic activity, the surface of Enceladus is being modified by intense endogenic activity breaking through in the southern polar terrain. It is conceivable that Enceladus' water vapor release and resurfacing are caused by tidal heating in combination with radiogenic heating in the rock component. Improved determinations of satellite densities in the course of the Cassini mission suggest compositional differences between both satellites that may be linked to the geological evolution of their surfaces. The mean density of Enceladus of (1608 +/- 5) kg/m³ is comparable to the uncompressed densities of the large icy satellites Ganymede, Titan, and Callisto and suggests that Enceladus' interior is similarly composed of ice and rock at nearly equal shares. In contrast, the mean density of Mimas of (1152 +/- 32) kg/m³ is roughly comparable to the mass-weighted average density of the small and mid-sized Saturnian satellites corresponding to a rock content of only one third of that of Enceladus. Although Mimas' rock content and related radiogenic heating rate are considerably smaller than those of Enceladus, however, the tidally-induced heating of Mimas can be expected to be more intense due to its more eccentric orbit and greater proximity to Saturn. In the present study, we consider plausible ranges of interior structure models that satisfy the mean densities and equilibrium shapes of Mimas and Enceladus. Furthermore, we assess maximum possible tidal dissipation rates and related thermal states to investigate under which conditions internal liquid layers could have formed possibly followed by gravitationally-induced separation of ice and rock components.

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