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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday June 01 2017, @03:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the planetary-hit-and-run dept.

The spin axis of Saturn's moon Enceladus may have reoriented due to a collision with another body:

Saturn's icy, ocean-bearing moon Enceladus may have tipped over in the distant past, according to recent research from NASA's Cassini mission. Researchers with the mission found evidence that the moon's spin axis -- the line through the north and south poles -- has reoriented, possibly due to a collision with a smaller body, such as an asteroid.

Examining the moon's features, the team showed that Enceladus appears to have tipped away from its original axis by about 55 degrees -- more than halfway toward rolling completely onto its side. "We found a chain of low areas, or basins, that trace a belt across the moon's surface that we believe are the fossil remnants of an earlier, previous equator and poles," said Radwan Tajeddine, a Cassini imaging team associate at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and lead author of the paper.

[...] Whether it was caused by an impact or some other process, Tajeddine and colleagues think the disruption and creation of the tiger-stripe terrain caused some of Enceladus' mass to be redistributed, making the moon's rotation unsteady and wobbly. The rotation would have eventually stabilized, likely taking more than a million years. By the time the rotation settled down, the north-south axis would have reoriented to pass through different points on the surface -- a mechanism researchers call "true polar wander."


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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 01 2017, @04:58PM (2 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday June 01 2017, @04:58PM (#518933)

    There are just so many ways to read this summary as Enceladus trying to get a White House job...

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 01 2017, @06:48PM (1 child)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday June 01 2017, @06:48PM (#518986) Journal

    There are more ways to creatively read it than you think. Think Different. (with no intent to offend anyone, using a fictional POV . . .)

    . . . may have tipped over in the distant past . . .

    Sounds kind of sissy to me.

    . . . has reoriented . . .

    OMG, this isn't talking about one of THOSE . . .

    . . . possibly due to a collision with a smaller body . . .

    That sounds pretty fishy to me.

    . . . rolling completely onto its side . . .

    (gasp!) get the children out of the room!

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 01 2017, @06:52PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Thursday June 01 2017, @06:52PM (#518992)

      Also works with a fat drunk getting a tattoo.