Sulfur- and Oyxgen(?)-Rich Cores of Large Icy Satellites

Details Sulfur- and Oyxgen(?)-Rich Cores of Large Icy Satellites Sulfur- and Oyxgen(?)-Rich Cores of Large Icy Satellites

Dec 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008agufmmr31b..07m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2008, abstract #MR31B-07

Physics

5430 Interiors (8147), 5455 Origin And Evolution, 6221 Europa, 6222 Ganymede, 6281 Titan

Scientific paper

The internal structures of Jupiter's large moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, and Titan once Cassini data is sufficiently analyzed, can be usefully compared with those of the terrestrial planets. With sufficient heating we expect not only separation of rock from ice, but also metal from rock. The internally generated dipole magnetic field of Ganymede is perhaps the strongest evidence for this separation, but the gravity field of Io also implies a metallic core. Nevertheless, the evolutionary paths to differentiation taken (or avoided in the case of Callisto) by these worlds are quite different from those presumed to have the governed differentiation of the terrestrial planets, major asteroids, and iron meteorite parent bodies. Several aspects stand out. Slow accretion in gas-starved protosatellite nebulae implies that neither giant, magma-forming impacts were likely, nor were short-lived radiogenic nuclei in sufficient abundance to drive prompt differentiation. Rather, differentiation would have relied on quotidian long-lived radionuclide heating and/or in the cases of Io, Europa, and possibly Ganymede, tidal heating in mean-motion resonances. The best a priori estimate for the composition of the "rock" component near Jupiter and Saturn is solar, and it is this material that is fed into the accretion disks around Jupiter and Saturn, across the gaps the planets likely created in the solar nebula. Solar composition rock implies a sulfur abundance close to the Fe-FeS eutectic (at appropriate pressures). The rocky component of these worlds was likely highly oxidized as well, based on carbonaceous meteorite analogues, implying relatively low Mg#s (by terrestrial standards), lower amounts of Fe metal available for core formation, or even oxidized Fe3O4 as a potential core component. The latter may be important, as an Fe-S-O melt wets silicate grains readily, and thus can easily percolate downward, Elsasser style, to form a core. Nevertheless, the amount of FeS alone available to form a core may have been considerable, and a picture emerges of large, relatively low-density cores (a far greater proportion of "light alloying elements" than in the Earth's core), and relatively iron-rich rock mantles. Ganymede, and possibly Europa, may even retain residual solid FeS in their rock mantles, depending on the tidal heating history of each. Large, dominantly fluid cores imply enhanced mantle tidal deformation and heating. Published models have claimed that the Galilean satellites are depleted in Fe compared to rock, and in the case of Ganymede, that it is either depleted or enhanced in Fe. Obviously Ganymede cannot be both, and detailed structural models show that the Galilean satellites can be explained in terms of solar composition, once one allows for abundant sulfur and hot (liquid) cores.

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