Two articles that appeared this week in the journal Nature expressed opposing views on the question of whether Saturn's moon Enceladus contains a liquid, salty ocean?
Two articles that appeared this week in the journal Nature expressed opposing views on the question of whether Saturn's moon Enceladus contains a liquid, salty ocean?
A research team from Europe said that a large plume of water erupting in giant jets from the south pole of the moon Enceladus is fed from a salty ocean. While another group, led by researchers from the University of Colorado in Boulder, concluded that the erupting geysers do not contain enough sodium to have their origin in the ocean. The correct answer to the puzzle could allow us to locate extraterrestrial life, as well as improve our understanding of how moons form.
The Cassini spacecraft first observed the plume when it began its mission around the giant ring in 2005. Enceladus spews water vapor, gas and small nuggets of ice hundreds of kilometers above the moon's surface. The moon, which orbits Saturn beyond the outer ring - ring E, is one of three bodies in the outer system that produces eruptions of dust and water vapor. Moreover, apart from Earth, Mars, and the fair moon Europa, Enceladus is one of the few bodies in the solar system where astronomers have observed direct evidence of the presence of water.
The European team led by Frank Postberg from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, reports that they discovered sodium salts in the dust ejected from the dust plume ejected from Enceladus. Postberg and his colleagues analyzed data from the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) aboard the Cassini spacecraft, and combined it with data from laboratory experiments.
They say that the ice cores in the Enceladus plume contain considerable amounts of sodium salts, and they say they originate from a salty ocean deep underground.
The result of the study shows that the concentration of sodium chloride in the ocean may be as high as that of the earth - 0.1-0.3 moles of salt per kg of water.
However, the study from Colorado offers a different explanation. Nicholas Schneider of the Laboratory for Space and Atmospheric Physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder and his colleagues say that large amounts of sodium in the plume should provide the same amount of yellow light coming from street lights, and that the best telescopes on Earth can detect even tiny amounts of sodium atoms orbiting Saturn.
Schneider's team used a telescope with a diameter of 10 meters and the Anglo-American telescope with a diameter of 4 meters, also at the same observatory, and they found that very few sodium atoms are present in the water vapor emitted from Enceladus. "It was very exciting to support the geyser hypothesis. However, this is not what Mother Nature is telling us," said Schneider.
One proposed explanation for the conflicting results, says Schneider, is that large caves may contain water that evaporates from them. When the evaporation process slows down, the steam contains a little sodium, just like the water evaporating from the ocean. The vapor becomes a jet because it leaks out of small slits in the membrane straight into the void of space.
"Only if the evaporation is strong, it will contain more salt" says Schneider. "The idea of slow evaporation from a deep ocean is not a dramatic one, but it is possible given the two results so far." However, Schneider is also cautious about other possibilities for the origin of the jets. "It is still possible that there is hot ice heating up and evaporating into space. There may also be places where the crust rubs against itself due to Geon movements and the friction creates liquid water that evaporates into space." said.
"These are all hypotheses but I cannot confirm any of the results so far" said Schneider. "We have to take all this data with a grain of salt."
More on the subject on the science website
9 תגובות
Lalon
ok, the (partial) apology
is accepted (in full).
I didn't mean a direct missile, I meant sending a spaceship or something to try to land a robot and then maybe activate a certain mechanism that would activate a bomb
Lalon.
Are not you ashamed ? How to kill all the animals on Enceladus?
Maybe you can make a slightly more humane offer?
And if the nuclear missile you propose explodes (peace be upon him) upon launch, on the ground?
A question for those in the know, is there an option to send a missile with nuclear power without the destructive effects such as radiation, etc. that will make a huge crater in a place they choose and then maybe we will really find out what is under the ice
Here is a (not) so wild bet:
If there is liquid water and minerals there... there is some kind of life there.
Inaccurate, it is known that there is water ice at the poles of Mars for quite a long time and there is evidence that the water was in a liquid state in the past. They have not been able to locate water in a liquid state today because in the low atmospheric pressure water rises very quickly and boils at seven degrees Celsius.
I thought that they had not yet discovered water on Mars for sure but only evidence of water that existed there in the past. I'm wrong?
"The Prophecy" is a strong film that is tied to our eyes. Highly recommended. A must (with emphasis on the heat
The last theory is the most logical - ice that warms as a result of tidal forces