Enceladus news

Post date: Apr 06, 2014 10:18:53 AM

One of the interesting news of this week, was the publication of an in-depth analysis of the interior structure of Enceladus.

The work was published in Science using the data collected from Cassini. How do you do such an analysis (in particular of something you don't see)?

A lot of insights about the interior of a celestial body can be extracted from its gravitational field. In particular, the group led by Luciano Iess at Sapienza, studied the quadrupole moments of the small moon of Saturn. The interest in its interior was initially captured by the jets which seems to be quite clearly visible from contrast images.

In particular, the group focussed on the quadrupole anomaly, which seems to be consistent with a regional ocean hidden underneath the south polar crust of the moon (which is barely 500km of diameter).

Interesting science!