Cassini finds mingling moons may share a dark past

Despite the incredible diversity of Saturn’s icy moons, theirs is a story of great interaction. Some are pock-marked, some seemingly dirty, others pristine, one spongy, one two-faced, some still spewing with activity and some seeming to be captured from the far reaches of the solar system. Yet many of them have a common thread - black ‘stuff’ coating their surfaces.

“We are beginning to unravel the mysteries of these different and strange moons,” said Rosaly Lopes, Cassini scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), USA. She coordinated a special section of 14 papers about Saturn’s icy moons that appears in the February issue of the journal Icarus.

Taken together, the papers bring an idea that Cassini scientist Bonnie Buratti calls ‘the ecology of the Saturn system’ to the forefront. “Ecology is about your entire environment – not just one body, but how they all interact,” said Buratti. “The Saturn system is really interesting, and if you look at the surfaces of the moons, they seem to be altered in ways that aren’t intrinsic to them. There seems to be some transport in this system.”

Though the details of that transport are not clear yet, mounting evidence suggests that some mechanism has spread the mysterious dark material found on several of the moons from one to another; the material may even have a common cometary origin. Along those lines, several of the new papers focus on similarities between the dark material found on different moons – on Hyperion and Iapetus, for example, or between Phoebe and Iapetus.

Roger Clark of the United States Geological Survey in Denver, USA goes further, saying, “We see the same spectral signature on all the moons that have coatings of dark material.” Clark is lead author of one of the new papers, which focuses on Saturn’s moon Dione. His team found the dark material there to be extremely fine-grained, making up only a very thin layer on the moon’s trailing side. Its distribution and composition, as measured by the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, indicate that the dark material is not native to Dione. And scientists see many of the same signatures there that appear on the moons Phoebe, Iapetus, Hyperion and Epimetheus, and also in Saturn's F-ring.

As for where this material comes from and what the dark material is, Clark said, “It’s a mystery, which makes it intriguing. We’re still trying to find the exact match.” The visual and infrared spectrometer detected unique absorption bands in the dark material within the Saturn system, which scientists have not seen anywhere else in the Solar System. “The data keeps getting better and better,” he said. “We’re ruling things out and figuring out pieces.” So far, the team has identified bound water and, possibly, ammonia in the dark material.

Ongoing geological activity is another component of Saturn’s ecology as some of the moons continue to feed the planet’s rings, which in turn affect many of the moons.

Clark’s team reports tentative evidence to support the hypothesis presented earlier this year that Dione is still geologically active. In one series of observations, the infrared spectrometer detected a cloud of methane and water ice encircling Dione in its orbit within the outer portions of Saturn's E-ring.

Of course the big story is the icy plumes spewing from the warm, south polar region of Enceladus. These plumes are believed to be feeding the E-ring. A paper led by Frank Postberg of the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, says there are traces of organic compounds or silicate materials within the water ice-dominated E-ring, close to Enceladus. This implies that the moon’s rocky core and liquid water are dynamically interacting. The finding could bolster a theory that Dennis Matson and Julie Castillo of JPL put forth this year, which said that a warm, organic brew might lie just below Enceladus’ surface.

Cassini’s next close study of an icy moon is the highly-anticipated flyby of Enceladus scheduled for 12 March. During that flyby, Cassini will pass by the active moon at a distance of only 50 km at its point of closest approach, and at a distance of around 200 km when it passes through the plumes.

Source: ESA

Related stories:

MRO Spacecraft Images Mars Moon in Color and in 3D
A new stereo view of Phobos, the larger and inner of Mars' two tiny moons, has been captured by a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars.
New Views of Martian Moons
These two images taken by the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) show Mars' two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, as seen from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's low orbit around Mars. Both images were taken while the spacecraft was over Mars' night side, with the spacecraft turned off its normal nadir-viewing geometry to glimpse the moons.
Cassini is on the Trail of a Runaway Mystery
NASA scientists are on the trail of Iapetus' mysterious dark side, which seems to be home to a bizarre "runaway" process that is transporting vaporized water ice from the dark areas to the white areas of the Saturnian moon.
Cassini Prepares to Fly by Walnut-Shaped Moon
Cassini will make its only close flyby of Saturn's odd, two-toned, walnut-shaped moon Iapetus on Sept. 10, 2007, at about 1,640 kilometers (1,000 miles) from the surface.

Astronomers get first look at Uranus's rings as they swing edge-on to Earth
As the rings of Uranus swing edge-on to Earth - a short-lived view we get only once every 42 years - astronomers observing the event are getting an unprecedented, glare-free view of the rings and the fine dust that permeates them.
Cassini Finds Hydrocarbons on Saturn's Moon Hyperion
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has revealed for the first time surface details of Saturn's moon Hyperion, including cup-like craters filled with hydrocarbons that may indicate more widespread presence in our solar system of basic chemicals necessary for life.
Cassini 'CAT Scan' maps clumps in Saturn's rings
Saturn's largest and most densely packed ring is composed of dense clumps of particles separated by nearly empty gaps, according to new findings from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
Asteroids and meteorites reveal family resemblance
Asteroids and meteorites are supposed to be made of the same stuff – at least that's what earth science teachers have been telling their students for decades. But until re-cently, the data didn't quite fit the story. When researchers compared the near-infrared reflectance of asteroids (as measured from Earth) and meteorites (collected on Earth) they found enough differences to raise doubts about whether the asteroids really could be the source of Earth's meteorites.

News discussion:

Space & Earth science news