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."
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday June 01 2017, @04:58PM (2 children)
There are just so many ways to read this summary as Enceladus trying to get a White House job...
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 01 2017, @06:48PM (1 child)
There are more ways to creatively read it than you think. Think Different. (with no intent to offend anyone, using a fictional POV . . .)
Sounds kind of sissy to me.
OMG, this isn't talking about one of THOSE . . .
That sounds pretty fishy to me.
(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
Also works with a fat drunk getting a tattoo.