An Ice World: Enceladus

Enceladus is one of Saturn's brightest satellites. The satellite, discovered by William Herschell in 1789, is very close to the planet Saturn. Its diameter is around 500 km.

This very small diameter does not seem to be enough for Enceladus to form a proper spherical structure. However, since most of the mass of Enceladus consists of water ice, which we can call diye soft ”structure, it has such a smooth spherical structure. Otherwise, the tuber is supposed to be a lumpy piece of rock.

The most important feature that distinguishes Enceladus from other glacial satellites is that its surface is very bright, smooth and contains a small number of craters. This means that; The surface of Enceladus's water ice is in constant “regeneration gibi, just like the surfaces of active planets like Earth and Venus.

The satellite reflects back almost 90% of the light it receives from the Sun. In order to achieve this, he would need pure ice, fresh from dust and rock on his surface, which apparently meets Enceladus. In the images taken with space vehicles, structures similar to the channels on the surface were found in different shapes. These channels tell us that there are occasional liquid currents on the surface.

In 2005, during a near-pass by the Cassini spacecraft, ice volcanoes gushing from the satellite into space were discovered. This indicated that the satellite was still active and mobile. Therefore, it became clear why there were few craters on its surface. The “lavas”, which are emanating from these ice volcanoes, namely liquid water; covering the craters and covering the surface, creating a new and young surface.

It is also thought that these pieces of ice gushing from the Enceladus satellite play an important role in the formation of Saturn's pale E-ring. Being close to a gas giant planet means you will experience a strong tidal effect. Just like what happened to Jupiter's satellite Io, Enceladus is squeezed like a rubber ball because of this tidal effect.

In this way, despite the fact that it is a very small satellite with the friction inside, it remains hot. This hot “liquid water altındaki beneath the icy surface forms volcanoes and spreads to the surface of the satellite. At the same time, this water, which survived the low gravity of Enceladus (about 1% of the Earth), is added to Saturn's ring E in the form of ice chunks.

The top detailed overview of the satellite was taken in 2005 by the Cassini spacecraft at a distance of 270 km.