Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufm.p13d..05h&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #P13D-05
Physics
6055 Surfaces, 6280 Saturnian Satellites
Scientific paper
On 12th March 2008, and again on 11th August 2008, the Cassini spacecraft flew past the South Pole of Enceladus at a distance of a few hundred kilometers. During both encounters the long-wavelength detector (FP1) on Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) took over one hundred 10 to 600 cm-1 (1000 - 17 micron) spectra of the thermal emission from the active tiger stripes. The wavelength region covered by FP1 contains most of the power radiated by the tiger stripes and thus is very valuable for constraining total heat flow. Previous estimates of endogenic heat flow were derived by extrapolation from shorter-wavelength CIRS data. During the August encounter FP1 achieved a maximum resolution of 3 km, over the tiger stripe Arabia Sulcus. Whilst the best spatial resolution during the March encounter was significantly lower (50 km to 200 km) a larger number of spectra were taken, covering single or multiple tiger stripes. Using these measurements and previously determined surface thermal properties of Enceladus the total magnitude of the endogenic power from this region is constrained. An important part of this process is the subtraction of the background emission from re-radiated sunlight, using a passive thermal model, which is constrained by CIRS FP1 observations that do not include the tiger stripes. The good spatial coverage of the tiger stripes has enabled the endogenic heat released by individual tiger stripes to also be determined. It is shown that the release of this heat by the tiger stripes is not uniform, but rather varies between stripes and along the stripes. The magnitude and scale of this variation will be fully explored.
Cirs Cassini Team
Howett C. J.
Pearl P. C.
Segura M.
Spencer John Robert
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