Repeated Impact-Driven Plume Formation On Enceladus Over Megayear Timescales
Water plumes erupting from the `tiger stripe' features on the south pole of Enceladus are thought to connect to a global subsurface ocean. Proposed origins for the initial stress necessary to form the `tiger stripes' include a giant impact, which would require true polar wander to explain...
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ftdatacite:10.48550/arxiv.2003.07866 2023-05-15T18:21:49+02:00 Repeated Impact-Driven Plume Formation On Enceladus Over Megayear Timescales Siraj, Amir Loeb, Abraham 2020 https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2003.07866 https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.07866 unknown arXiv https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2020.114281 arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ Earth and Planetary Astrophysics astro-ph.EP FOS Physical sciences article-journal Article ScholarlyArticle Text 2020 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2003.07866 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2020.114281 2022-03-10T16:02:04Z Water plumes erupting from the `tiger stripe' features on the south pole of Enceladus are thought to connect to a global subsurface ocean. Proposed origins for the initial stress necessary to form the `tiger stripes' include a giant impact, which would require true polar wander to explain the location of the plumes if the impact did not occur at the South Pole, or tensile stresses, which would require volumetric expansion associated with partial freezing of the subsurface ocean. In addition to the requirement of a fine-tuned impact, true polar wander, or partial freezing of the subsurface ocean, a further issue with these hypotheses is that the `tiger stripes' may be short-lived. We show here that impact resurfacing can seal off plumes and mass loss can lead to their compression and closure over $\sim 1 \mathrm{\;Myr}$. Since plumes are observed at present, a mechanism by which new plumes can be generated every $\sim 1 \mathrm{\;Myr}$ and by which such plumes are most likely to form at the south pole is needed. We propose and investigate the possibility that impacts constitute an adequate repeating source for the continual instigation of fractures and plumes. We find that the rate of impacts on Enceladus suggests the formation of $\sim 10^3$ independent plume systems per Gyr, the vast majority on the south pole, and is consistent with the Cassini-derived age of the south pole for a lunar-like bombardment history, our estimates of fracture lifetimes, and with the needed parameters for parallel fracture propagation. The model favors a bombardment history similar to that of Triton over one more similar to that of the Galilean satellites. : 13 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in Icarus Article in Journal/Newspaper South pole DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) South Pole Stripe ENVELOPE(9.914,9.914,63.019,63.019) Triton ENVELOPE(-55.615,-55.615,49.517,49.517) |
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DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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topic |
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics astro-ph.EP FOS Physical sciences |
spellingShingle |
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics astro-ph.EP FOS Physical sciences Siraj, Amir Loeb, Abraham Repeated Impact-Driven Plume Formation On Enceladus Over Megayear Timescales |
topic_facet |
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics astro-ph.EP FOS Physical sciences |
description |
Water plumes erupting from the `tiger stripe' features on the south pole of Enceladus are thought to connect to a global subsurface ocean. Proposed origins for the initial stress necessary to form the `tiger stripes' include a giant impact, which would require true polar wander to explain the location of the plumes if the impact did not occur at the South Pole, or tensile stresses, which would require volumetric expansion associated with partial freezing of the subsurface ocean. In addition to the requirement of a fine-tuned impact, true polar wander, or partial freezing of the subsurface ocean, a further issue with these hypotheses is that the `tiger stripes' may be short-lived. We show here that impact resurfacing can seal off plumes and mass loss can lead to their compression and closure over $\sim 1 \mathrm{\;Myr}$. Since plumes are observed at present, a mechanism by which new plumes can be generated every $\sim 1 \mathrm{\;Myr}$ and by which such plumes are most likely to form at the south pole is needed. We propose and investigate the possibility that impacts constitute an adequate repeating source for the continual instigation of fractures and plumes. We find that the rate of impacts on Enceladus suggests the formation of $\sim 10^3$ independent plume systems per Gyr, the vast majority on the south pole, and is consistent with the Cassini-derived age of the south pole for a lunar-like bombardment history, our estimates of fracture lifetimes, and with the needed parameters for parallel fracture propagation. The model favors a bombardment history similar to that of Triton over one more similar to that of the Galilean satellites. : 13 pages, 5 figures; accepted for publication in Icarus |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Siraj, Amir Loeb, Abraham |
author_facet |
Siraj, Amir Loeb, Abraham |
author_sort |
Siraj, Amir |
title |
Repeated Impact-Driven Plume Formation On Enceladus Over Megayear Timescales |
title_short |
Repeated Impact-Driven Plume Formation On Enceladus Over Megayear Timescales |
title_full |
Repeated Impact-Driven Plume Formation On Enceladus Over Megayear Timescales |
title_fullStr |
Repeated Impact-Driven Plume Formation On Enceladus Over Megayear Timescales |
title_full_unstemmed |
Repeated Impact-Driven Plume Formation On Enceladus Over Megayear Timescales |
title_sort |
repeated impact-driven plume formation on enceladus over megayear timescales |
publisher |
arXiv |
publishDate |
2020 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2003.07866 https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.07866 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(9.914,9.914,63.019,63.019) ENVELOPE(-55.615,-55.615,49.517,49.517) |
geographic |
South Pole Stripe Triton |
geographic_facet |
South Pole Stripe Triton |
genre |
South pole |
genre_facet |
South pole |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2020.114281 |
op_rights |
arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2003.07866 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2020.114281 |
_version_ |
1766201140742979584 |