Saturn Moon Enceladus' Churning Insides May Keep Its Ocean Warm
Source: Space.com
Saturn Moon Enceladus' Churning Insides May Keep Its Ocean Warm
By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor | November 6, 2017 05:43pm ET
The mystery of why the ocean beneath the icy shell of Saturn's moon Enceladus did not freeze over long ago may now be solved — heat from the scraping of rock churning within the fragmented core of Enceladus could keep its underground ocean warm for up to billions of years, a new study finds.
This heat could help provide the kinds of conditions required for life to develop, according to the study.
In 2005, NASA's Cassini spacecraft discovered jets of water ice, organic molecules and other material blasting into space from giant fissures near Enceladus' south pole. Researchers suspect these jets come from an ocean "buried beneath a relatively thin ice shell 20 to 25 kilometers [12.4 to 15.5 miles] thick on average," said study lead author Gael Choblet, a planetary scientist at the University of Nantes in France.
Enceladus is only about 314 miles (505 kilometers) wide, making it small enough to fit inside the borders of the state of Arizona. Given its tiny size and thin icy crust, one might have expected it to have cooled off rapidly after its formation and frozen solid by now. Previous research suggested that in order for Enceladus to still possess an internal ocean, a giant heat source was required, one generating more than 20 billion watts, which is about as much power put out by the Three Gorges Dam in China, the largest power station on Earth.
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Read more: https://www.space.com/38679-saturn-moon-enceladus-warm-churning-insides.html