Related papers: Differing Enceladean ocean circulation and ice she…
Over the south pole of Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, geysers eject water into space in a striped pattern, making Enceladus one of the most attractive destinations in the search for extraterrestrial life. We explore the ocean dynamics…
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…
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…
Enceladus is believed to have a saltwater global ocean with a mean depth of at least 30~km, heated from below at the ocean-core interface and cooled at the top, where the ocean loses heat to the icy lithosphere above. This scenario suggests…
Tidal heating is the prime suspect behind Enceladus's south polar heating anomaly and global subsurface ocean. No model of internal tidal dissipation, however, can explain at the same time the total heat budget and the focusing of the…
Saturn raises a time-dependent tide on its small moon Enceladus, due to the eccentricity of the orbit. As shown in a companion paper (Goldreich et al.), the resulting tidal heating drives Enceladus into a limit cycle, in which its…
Observational data suggest that the ice shell on Enceladus is thicker at the equator than at the pole, indicating an equator-to-pole ice flow. If the ice shell is in an equilibrium state, the mass transport of the ice flow must be balanced…
Globally ice-covered oceans have been found on multiple moons in the solar system and may also have been a feature of Earth's past. However, relatively little is understood about the dynamics of these ice-covered oceans, which affect not…
On icy worlds, the ice shell and subsurface ocean form a coupled system -- heat and salinity flux from the ice shell induced by the ice thickness gradient drives circulation in the ocean, and in turn, the heat transport by ocean circulation…
The ice shell of Enceladus exhibits strong asymmetry between its hemispheres, with all known geysers concentrated over the south pole, even though its orbital configuration is almost perfectly symmetric. By exploring ocean circulation…
The geologic activity at Enceladus's south pole remains unexplained, though tidal deformations are probably the ultimate cause. Recent gravity and libration data indicate that Enceladus's icy crust floats on a global ocean, is rather thin,…
Enceladus is among the most intriguing bodies in the solar system due to its astrobiological potential. Determining the extent and duration of habitability (i.e., sustained habitability) requires characterizing the interior properties and…
The ice shell and subsurface ocean on icy worlds are strongly coupled together -- heat and salinity flux from the ice shell induced by the ice thickness gradient drives circulation in the ocean, and in turn, the heat transport by ocean…
Ocean worlds are prevalent in the solar system. Focusing on Enceladus, Titan, Europa, and Ganymede, I use rotating convection theory and numerical simulations to predict ocean currents and the potential for ice-ocean coupling. When the…
The extraordinary activity at Enceladus' warm south pole indicates the presence of an internal global or local reservoir of liquid water beneath the surface. While Tyler (2009, 2011) has suggested that the geological activity and the large…
Recent planetary data and geophysical modelling suggest that hydrothermal activity is ongoing under the ice crust of Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons. According to these models, hydrothermal flow in the porous, rocky core of the satellite…
Several planetary satellites apparently have subsurface seas that are of great interest for, among other reasons, their possible habitability. The geologically diverse Saturnian satellite Enceladus vigorously vents liquid water and vapor…
Previous studies that have considered the ocean circulation on Enceladus have generally assumed the salinity to be Earth-like. However, according to observations and geochemical constraints, the salinity of Enceladus' ocean is likely to be…
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…
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…