spacetoday.net: space news from around the webin association with SpaceNews


Cassini sees signs of volcanism on Enceladus
Posted: Sun, Jul 31, 2005, 10:21 AM ET (1421 GMT)
Enceladus seen by Cassini in July 2005 (NASA/JPL) Enceladus, a small, icy moon of Saturn, may surprisingly be volcanically active, scientists analyzing data from the Cassini mission announced Friday. Cassini detected a large cloud of water vapor surrounding the moon when it flew past the icy world on July 14. Because Enceladus is so small — 500 kilometers across — the only way the moon could retain that cloud of vapor for any length of time is if the moon replenishes the cloud with some kind of volcanic activity. Cassini also found that the south pole of Enceladus is warmer than other regions of the moon's surface, presumably because of some kind of internal heating. Scientists are puzzled how a moon as small as Enceladus could generate enough internal heat to drive volcanic activity and why it is concentrated in a single region.
Related Links:
<<previous article   next article>>
news in brief
Starship explodes during preparations for static-fire test
Posted: Sun, Jun 22 6:52 AM ET (1052 GMT)

French government leads investment in Eutelsat
Posted: Sat, Jun 21 8:38 AM ET (1238 GMT)

NASA further delays Ax-4 launch
Posted: Sat, Jun 21 8:34 AM ET (1234 GMT)

news links
Monday, June 30
Blue Origin N-S 33 lifts off
KVIA-TV El Paso, TX — 5:39 am ET (0939 GMT)


about spacetoday.net   ·   info@spacetoday.net   ·   mailing list