Related papers: Cascading parallel fractures on Enceladus
Of profound astrobiological interest, Enceladus appears to have a global subsurface ocean that is salty, indicating water-rock reaction at present or in the past, important for its habitability. Here, we investigate how salinity and the…
Since the discovery of an ice particle plume erupting from the south polar terrain on Saturn's moon Enceladus, the geophysical mechanisms driving its activity have been the focus of substantial scientific research. The pattern and…
Magnetic clouds (MCs) are transient structures containing large-scale magnetic flux ropes from solar eruptions. The twist of magnetic field lines around the rope axis reveals information about flux rope formation processes and…
We simulate the collision of precursor icy moons analogous to Dione and Rhea as a possible origin for Saturn's remarkably young rings. Such an event could have been triggered a few hundred million years ago by resonant instabilities in a…
We model the evolution of buoyant magnetic flux tubes in the Sun's convection zone. A flux tube is assumed to lie initially near the top of the stably stratified radiative core below the convection zone, but a segment of it is perturbed…
Saturn's E ring consists of micron-sized particles launched from Enceladus by that moon's geological activity. A variety of small-scale structures in the E-ring's brightness have been attributed to tendrils of material recently launched…
Ridge-and-trough terrain is a common landform on outer Solar System icy satellites. Examples include Ganymede's grooved terrain, Europa's gray bands, Miranda's coronae, and several terrains on Enceladus. The conditions associated with the…
Could tidal dissipation within Enceladus' subsurface ocean account for the observed heat flow? Earthlike models of dynamical tides give no definitive answer because they neglect the influence of the crust. I propose here the first model of…
The habitability of Enceladus' subsurface ocean and the detectability of potential biosignatures depend on efficient ocean circulation and suitable ocean conditions. Directly probing the ocean is challenging because it lies beneath a thick…
Tidal dissipation is thought to be responsible for the observed high heat loss on Enceladus. Forced librations can enhance tidal dissipation in the ice shell, but how such librations affect the thermal state of Enceladus has not been…
As a long-term energy source, tidal heating in subsurface oceans of icy satellites can influence their thermal, rotational, and orbital evolution, and the sustainability of oceans. We present a new theoretical treatment for tidal heating in…
We present preliminary results of the XMM-Newton 50 ksec observation of the Perseus cluster. The global east/west asymmetry of the gas temperature and surface brightness distributions, approximately aligned with the chain of bright…
The nature of three-dimensional reconnection when a twisted flux tube erupts during an eruptive flare or coronal mass ejection is considered. The reconnection has two phases: first of all, 3D "zipper reconnection" propagates along the…
A goal of Cassini's extended mission has been to examine the seasonal variations of Saturn's magnetosphere, moons, and rings. Recently we showed that the magnetospheric plasma between the main rings and Enceladus exhibited a time dependence…
Context. Some of the most dynamic active regions are associated with complex photospheric magnetic configurations such as quadrupolar regions, and especially ones with a $\delta$-spot configuration and a strong Polarity Inversion Line…
Galactic spiral shocks are dominant morphological features and believed to be responsible for substructure formation within spiral arms in disk galaxies. They can also contribute a substantial amount of kinetic energy to the interstellar…
Context. The origin of water in the stratospheres of Giant Planets has been an outstanding question ever since its first detection by ISO some 20 years ago. Water can originate from interplanetary dust particles, icy rings and satellites…
We investigate the epicyclic motion of stars escaping from star clusters. Using streaklines, we visualise the path of escaping stars and show how epicyclic motion leads to over- and underdensities in tidal tails of star clusters moving on…
Images from instruments on Cassini as well as from telescopes on the ground reveal the presence of sporadic small-scale cloud activity in the cold late-winter north polar of Saturn's large moon Titan. These clouds lie underneath the…
Layered semi-convection is a possible candidate to explain Saturn's luminosity excess and the abnormally large radius of some hot Jupiters. In giant planet interiors, it could lead to the creation of density staircases, which are convective…