Re: Burp-Meister Enceladus

From: Drew (dwildstar30_at_nospam.nowhere.com)
Date: 03/20/05 

Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 18:13:52 GMT

On 17 Mar 2005 10:08:30 -0800, "Intertracer" <intertracer@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Are there any density/pressure estimations? So far we only know that it
>likely contains water vapour...

Considering how sharp the views of Enceladus' surface and limb have
been, I would think it's tenuous. However with this new evidence,
Enceladus must be geologicaly active and responsible for the E Ring.
The last piece of the puzzle would be to see a plume on the limb or a
temporary cloud over a fault (a fuzzy patch with a shadow) and
Enceladus will officialy join Earth, Io, and Triton in the geologicaly
active club. Unfortunately with two close flybys under our belt, we
haven't seen either.

>By the way, the latest Cassini flyby was at 500km, but the best
>revealed images are taken from over 4000km... anyone has a clue?

IIR, with such a close flyby of Enceladus, Cassini was going to fly
through the densest part of the E Ring, so prior to closest approach
Cassini turned to have it's high gain antenna pointed in the direction
of travel to act as a shield just in case. In this configuration
Enceladus was no longer in the cameras line of site, hence no pictures
closer than 4 thousand km. :( Sad, but I'd prefer losing a few
pictures at closest approach rather than risk damage to Cassini.

-Drew

Relevant Pages
Quantcast