Saturn's moon Enceladus has always been fascinating astronomers. Apart from proof that it contains water, its moon Enceladus sprays its ocean out into space where it was made easy for a spacecraft like Cassini to get samples. Through these samples, astronomers were able to discover that Saturn's moon Enceladus contains most of the chemical ingredients needed for life.
As seen from space, Saturn's moon Enceladus has a pure white surface save for a series of long fissures in its southern region, which kind of looked like tiger stripes. Ever since NASA's Cassini spacecraft discovered these fissures, astronomers are trying to figure out what are they made of.
WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT SATURN'S MOON ENCELADUS?
Images sent back by NASA's spacecraft Cassini reveals that Saturn's moon Enceladus has the whitest and most reflective surface in all of the solar system. Because its surface reflects sunlight, the surface temperature of Saturn's moon Enceladus is around -330 degrees Fahrenheit.
Another interesting thing about Saturn's moon Enceladus is that it creates a ring of its own made from the sprayed icy particles. Saturn's moon Enceladus is as wide as the state of Arizona and not only contains water, but it contains chemicals that are the building blocks of life. Astronomers hypothesize that Saturn's moon Enceladus may have hydrothermal vents inside the planets that are responsible for spewing out mineral-rich water.
Saturn's moon Enceladus contains fissures or plumes of water that are shooting up from the surface. Astronomers call these plumes "tiger stripes" because of their arrangement. According to astronomers, these fissures are proof that an ocean exists underneath the surface of the moon. If ever the hypothesis is true, this is a major discovery not only in the field of biology but for astrobiology as well.
In an article written in Gizmodo, planetary scientist Douglas Hemingway from the Carnegie Institution for Science and the first author of the study explains, "understanding the tiger stripes is important because these are the most active and dramatic ocean-to-surface pathways known on any of the icy ocean worlds in our solar system." Hemingway and his team published their findings in Nature Astronomy where they explained why the tiger stripes are located in the southern hemisphere of Saturn's moon Enceladus.
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WHY ARE THESE FISSURES IMPORTANT TO SATURN'S MOON ENCELADUS?
Astronomers discovered that the fissures visible on the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus are appearing as four parallel lines that measure around 130 kilometers long and are in a state of spewing liquid water from its subsurface ocean.
The team behind this study used computer models and simulate how the icy crust responds to the build-up of pressure on the surface by applying the linear elastic theory. Through this methodology, the team was able to figure out a crucially important factor on how and why the fissures on Saturn's moon Enceladus were able to spew out liquid water -- the moon's eccentric orbit. Enceladus' orbit is elliptical, and it is responsible for the moon's travel away and towards the planet.
The tides produced by Enceladus' rotation around Saturn creates heat that deforms the moon. This is the reason why Saturn's moon Enceladus is still liquid beneath the icy surface. The deformations are strongly felt in the polar regions of the moon, where ice is thin. Astronomers think that sometime during the moon's development, it underwent a period of cooling down. In the cooling down process, water under the poles froze and expanded, creating the fissures now present in the southern hemisphere.
Astronomers called the first fissure to appear "Baghdad" after the city (they named the rest after cities as well but mostly the cities which appeared in The Arabian Nights) and explained that the appearance of the initial crack was because of chance and it could have happened to either pole first.
The Baghdad fissure remains active thanks to the effect of Saturn's gravity, which allowed water from beneath the surface of Enceladus to escape to the surface. The ejected water that escapes the surface and falls back down to the moon turns into ice and snow resulting in the steady buildup of the material along the fissure.
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