Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Oct 2007
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.4108h&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #41.08; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.495
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
In 2005 Cassini made the startling discovery of an enormous plume of water vapor coming from the south polar region of Enceladus [1, 2]. High resolution images revealed numerous individual jets of fine material coming from the "tiger stripe” rifts across Enceladus’ south pole [3]. On October 24, 2007 an occultation of zeta Orionis by the plume will take place, enabling UVIS to detect opacity variations in the gas vapor due to higher pressure streams. If these variations are substantial enough to be detectable then we can provide key new data to the effort to model the largest particle size that can be lofted by the plumes. Cassini spacecraft health is the limiting factor in how close the spacecraft will be allowed to get to Enceladus in the extended mission.
The water vapor being spewed out in Enceladus’ plume photo-dissociates to OH and O, detectable as neutral products flooding Saturn's system. UVIS has previously observed significant variability in this system oxygen, both in spatial distribution and overall content. We have asserted that remote observations of system-level oxygen can be used as a proxy for observing Enceladus’ eruptive variability. This allows us to track activity levels on Enceladus even when the spacecraft is not close to Enceladus, which happens only rarely. The results of our observing campaign over the last year will be reported.
This work was partially supported by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA.
[1] Dougherty, M. K., et al., Science 311:1406-1409 (2006). [2] Hansen, C. J. et al., Science 311:1422-1425 (2006). [3] Porco, C. C. et al., Science 311:1393-1401 (2006).
Esposito Larry
Hansen Candice
Hendrix Alan
Meinke B.
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