The Gravity Field and Interior Structure of Enceladus

Inside Enceladus Saturn's moon Enceladus has often been the focus of flybys of the Cassini spacecraft. Although small—Enceladus is roughly 10 times smaller than Saturn's largest moon, Titan—Enceladus has shown hints of having a complex internal structure rich in liquid water. Iess et al. (...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science
Main Authors: Iess, L., Stevenson, D. J., Parisi, M., Hemingway, D., Jacobson, R. A., Lunine, J. I., Nimmo, F., Armstrong, J. W., Asmar, S. W., Ducci, M., Tortora, P.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2014
Subjects:
Multidisciplinary
South pole
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1250551
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.1250551
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Summary:Inside Enceladus Saturn's moon Enceladus has often been the focus of flybys of the Cassini spacecraft. Although small—Enceladus is roughly 10 times smaller than Saturn's largest moon, Titan—Enceladus has shown hints of having a complex internal structure rich in liquid water. Iess et al. (p. 78 ) used long-range data collected by the Cassini spacecraft to construct a gravity model of Enceladus. The resulting gravity field indicates the presence of a large mass anomaly at its south pole. Calculations of the moment of inertia and hydrostatic equilibrium from the gravity data suggest the presence of a large, regional subsurface ocean 30 to 40 km deep.

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