Surface Texture Analysis of Enceladus' South Polar Region

Details Surface Texture Analysis of Enceladus' South Polar Region Surface Texture Analysis of Enceladus' South Polar Region

Dec 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agufm.p51a1120c&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2009, abstract #P51A-1120

Physics

[6055] Planetary Sciences: Comets And Small Bodies / Surfaces, [6099] Planetary Sciences: Comets And Small Bodies / General Or Miscellaneous

Scientific paper

The Cassini spacecraft's discovery of active plumes at the south pole of Enceladus on its July 2006 flyby has sparked greater interest in both its internal and external physical and chemical properties. We choose to investigate the macroscopic surface texture of this active south polar region by implementing a surface roughness model developed by Buratti and Veverka (1985). The model requires intensity scans of Enceladus's surface and two unknown parameters: a scattering parameter A that indicates whether single or diffuse scattering is occurring, and a surface phase function f (α) that reflects changes in intensity due to various factors such as the single scattering albedo and the single particle phase function. The output is a quantitative description of surface roughness through a depth-to-radius ratio q. After fitting the model to the data, we find that plains north of the “tiger stripes” are fairly smooth, with preliminary values for q of around 0.08. Meanwhile, the stripes themselves are only slightly more rough, with preliminary values for q of around 0.10. These results strongly suggest in-filled coating of craters with water-ice throughout the entire south polar region of Enceladus. Furthermore, the model surface roughness of Enceladus does not appear to be sensitive to the choice of our photometric function, as changing A has little effect on q.

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