| Title | Evidence Found for Subsurface Ocean on Saturn's Moon Dione | |
| Date | Wednesday October 05 2016, @10:12AM | |
| Author | janrinok | |
| Topic | ||
| from the pack-the-surfboard dept. | ||
Cassini gravity measurements and a new model indicate that Dione may have a subsurface ocean like several other bodies in the solar system:
Saturn's moon Dione has joined the growing list of watery bodies in our solar system. Data from NASA's Cassini probe indicate that a liquid ocean some 20 miles deep exists far below the icy surface of the moon. This means that its interior looks similar to two other Saturnian moons, Titan and Enceladus, both of which hide vast oceans beneath a thin crust of ice. Dione is likely different in at least one respect though: the data indicate it's ocean buried much deeper.
The researchers based their analysis on gravity measurements taken by the Cassini spacecraft as it flew by Dione, tracking subtle shifts in the trajectory of the craft due to Dione's gravitational pull. Similar methods have been used before, but the data always seem to indicate that Dione had no such subterranean ocean. The new data, combined with a revised model of how the moon's crust should behave, changes that assumption. [...] Dione now joins Titan, Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede and Pluto as the solar system's wettest places — beyond Earth. And, given that we seem to find new bodies of liquid water every time we take a closer look at our solar system, more are likely to come.
Enceladus' and Dione's floating ice shells supported by minimum stress isostasy (DOI: 10.1002/2016GL070650) (DX)
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printed from SoylentNews, Evidence Found for Subsurface Ocean on Saturn's Moon Dione on 2023-07-17 23:59:27
