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Explaining the Tiger Stripes of Enceladus
Saturn's tiny, frozen moon Enceladus is a strange place. Just 300 miles across, the moon is thought to have an outer shell of ice covering a global ocean 20 miles deep, encasing a rocky core. Slashed across Enceladus' south pole are four straight, parallel fissures or "tiger stripes" from which water erupts. These fissures aren't quite like anything else in the solar system.
"We want to know why the eruptions are located at the south pole as opposed to some other place on Enceladus, how these eruptions can be sustained over long periods of time and finally why these eruptions are emanating from regularly spaced cracks," said Max Rudolph, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Davis.
[...] Enceladus' surface temperature is about negative 200 degrees Celsius, so if a crack formed in the ice, you would expect it to freeze shut pretty quickly. Yet the south polar fissures remain open, and in fact reach all the way to the liquid ocean below. That's because liquid water within the fissure is sloshed around by tidal forces produced by Saturn's gravity, releasing energy as heat, Rudolph said. That stops the crack from freezing shut.
The release of pressure from the fissures stops new cracks from forming elsewhere on the moon, such as at the north pole. But at the same time, water vented from the crack falls back as ice, building up the edges of the fissure and weighing it down a bit. That causes the ice sheet to flex, the researchers calculate, just enough to set off a parallel crack about 20 miles away. "Our model explains the regular spacing of the cracks," Rudolph said.
Also at Carnegie Science.
Cascading parallel fractures on Enceladus (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-019-0958-x) (DX) (arXiv)
(Score: -1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 12 2019, @04:51AM (11 children)
Well, at least it's a highly, specifically educated wild-assed guess. Models don't prove shit except that you can make the model show the results you want, guys. I could make a model that showed antibiotic use caused global warming and I wouldn't even have to tweak the numbers as much as climatologists do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday December 12 2019, @06:20AM (5 children)
Oh, Mitigated Broussard! Such an amateur you are! This has already been done by the founder (Parmesan be upon him) of the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, (FSM), who conclusively proved that Anthropogenic Global Climate Warming was due to the a Decline in the numbers of Pirates [forbes.com]! (Sorry for the Forbes link, only one that came up immediately.)
So, you see, oh cognitively challenged, due to lack of advanced higher education, beyond the level necessary to be a code monkey, someone much smarter than you, a "Graduate Student", as we call the baby Maesters and Doctores, has beat you to the punch. They probably did the plumbing for your kitchen sink much better, in design. Not much help on the job site, but is you melon-headly reject the knowledge of those who actually do know more than you, well, there is a Runaway1956 future for you.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:59AM (4 children)
Sorry, don't read Forbes or follow the CotFSM. For the same reason even. Folks who are full of shit need to be funnier than they are.
I find it interesting that you think extensive knowledge can only be gained by sitting in expensive, tedious supplication at the feet of gatekeepers who train you to think exactly as they do, thus ensuring no truly new ideas will be produced though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Thursday December 12 2019, @08:26AM (3 children)
Look into my eyes, TMB! Do you see that depth of wisdom? That Great Cloud of Knowing? Why can you not just admit that I am wiser than you, since you are an uneducated moran? How do I know you are an uneducated moran? Repeat after me, the signs of an uneducated moran: 1. Thinks education is about forcing students into conformity. 2. Things education is about forcing students into conformity. You have all the signs, oh Uncommencerated Bird of Carrion! Here, sit at my feet, so I can kick you upside the head multiple times for you recalcitrant ignorance! No new ideas? Seriously? As a comment to this Fine Article? Once again, you approach "Runaway1956" levels of dumb.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 12 2019, @01:32PM (2 children)
Your mind tricks won't work on me, old man. So you 're aware of all the unbound sources of knowledge, wisdom, and debate instantly available in the world today and still think learning requires gatekeepers? I guess you really can't teach an old dogma new tricks. You're like an orthodox priest during a reformation. The more you tighten your grip, the more minds will slip through your fingers.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:39PM (1 child)
More than aware, Busstard! Responsible for some of it. But also well aware that the average college age person is usually only able to find videos of cats and persons playing video games. Those who "profess" are more guides than gatekeepers, because knowledge is not the same as wisdom, and data is even more stupid. Perhaps we are more midwives of the mind, as Socrates suggests in the Theaetetus [wikisource.org].
As for those beyond the age of learning, whose minds are slipping into the certainty of old age and the getting off of their lawns, the plethora of human knowledge is even more useless to them, for they have forgot more than anyone else will ever know, and they have started watching Faux News non-stop.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 12 2019, @08:48PM
Nobody without a disease preventing it is beyond learning. You've neglected an entire, rich world of complaining in your quest to avoid telling kids to get off your lawn. And you've missed out on learning why old men do it in the first place. I'd just tell you but it's one of those things you have to learn for yourself.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:41AM (3 children)
Got a bug up your ass about something, carrion breath? Go out there and prove all those scientists wrong.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 12 2019, @07:52AM (2 children)
Only about bad science or bad reporting of acceptable science. Why would I want to put any effort into that? I don't give a shit about Enceladus or its cracks and they haven't proven that they're right; they've only made a baseless claim.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday December 12 2019, @09:02AM (1 child)
Enceladus [wikipedia.org] and Europa [wikipedia.org] could contain the only "alien" life humanity could easily encounter.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday December 12 2019, @01:23PM
What, so we can fuck things up for it too? I genuinely hope we never find alien life that can't at the very least keep us the hell off its world.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday December 12 2019, @04:02PM
Well, that is science for you.
Good models generate falsifiable hypotheses. We'll see if this is one.