A Wealth of Worlds: Moons of Ice and Rock • Our goals for learning • What kinds of ice worlds are in the outer Solar System? • Why are Jupiter’s Galilean moons so geologically active? • What is special about Titan and other major moons of the solar system?
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A Wealth of Worlds: Moons of Ice and Rock
• Our goals for learning• What kinds of ice worlds are in the outer
Solar System?• Why are Jupiter’s Galilean moons so
geologically active?• What is special about Titan and other
major moons of the solar system?
What kinds of Ice worlds Are in the Outer Solar System?
Two main locations:– Icy moons orbiting gas giant planets– Kuiper belt just past Neptune (KBOs)
Size Scale:– Small (< 300 km)
• No geological activity– Medium-sized (300-1,500 km)
• Geological activity in past– Large (> 1,500 km)
• Ongoing geological activity
Medium and Large Icy Worlds
• Enough self-gravity to be spherical.• Metal/rock core, ice mantle and crust.• Some geological activity• Largest Kuiper Belt Objects are counted
as “Dwarf Planets” (Pluto, Eris, Haumea, Makemake)
Medium & Large Moons
• Formed in orbit around gas giant planets.
• Circular orbits in same direction as planet rotation.
Why are Jupiter’s Galilean moons so geologically active?
Io
12th largest world
Active sulfur
volcanism
Io’s Volcanic Activity
• Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system, but why?
Changing volcanoes over 2 years
Tidal Heating
Io is squished and stretched as it orbits Jupiter But what is
causing it to stretch?
Orbital ResonancesEvery 7 days, these 3 moons line up.
The tugs add up over time, making all 3 orbits elliptical, which pulls on the worlds.
Europa -13th largest world
Tidal stresses crack surface iceNo surface volcanos, but millions of faults all over the surface. A few small craters are seen.
Europa’s Ocean: Waterworld?•Chaos regions: where warm ice wells up, breaks and spreads the surface.
Inside Europa
• Secondary magnetic field (requires liquid)• Broken disrupted surfaces from flowing ice• Surface covered in faults -some areas
spread apart.
• Conclusion: • Liquid interior layer -a global ocean
Europa’s interior also warmed by tidal heating
• Largest moon in the solar system
• Surface has long fault regions, but also heavily cratered plains.
Ganymede -8th largest world
Ganymede
• Clear evidence of geological activity
• Tidal heating plus heat from radio-active decay?
• Has a magnetic Field that varies.
Callisto• cratered iceball.• No tidal heating, no
orbital resonances.
Orbital Resonances
Every 7 days, these 3 moons line up.
The tugs add up over time, making all 3 orbits elliptical.
What have we learned?• What kinds of moons orbit jovian planets?
– Moons of many sizes– Level of geological activity depends on size
• Why are Jupiter’s Galilean moons so geologically active?– Tidal heating drives activity, leading to Io’s
volcanoes and ice geology on other moons
Saturn's Moons
What is special about Titan?
Titan’s Atmosphere• Titan is the only
moon in the solar system to have a thick atmosphere
• It consists mostly of nitrogen with ‘smog’ clouds that obscure the surface
Mosaic of Hygens Images• ~5 miles high
shows dark curving lines with branching tributaries (lower left).
• pattern is identical to desert rivers on Earth and the dry-river beds of Mars.
• conclude that Titan has flowing liquids eroding out channels.
lake
mountains
channels
Fish-eye Mosaic of Hygens Images• mountains and a shore-
line to some kind of dark-colored lake.
• However, at -290 °F at the surface, water is frozen as hard as rock.
• The lake must be made of organic liquids, probably a methane-ethane mix.
Channel
Delta
A closer look at the lake and shore-line region.
There appear to be drainage channels creating an ice delta or ice bar, similar to the features seen on the Nile or Mississippi deltas on Earth.
• Huygens landed with a quish!
• The probe landed in a dry-river bed with “sands” and “stones” made of ice.
• Huygens detected methane steaming off the surface from the heat of the probe.
• This saturated with liquid methane, just like wet soil on Earth would contain water.
Giant North Pole Lakes• The biggest lake so far is 39,000 square miles, it is larger
than lake Superior and about the size of the Black Sea
Active Methane Cycle :(• There is a tiny amount of
methane rainfall• The lakes do not appear
to grow and shrink in size • There is probably not a
permanent methane recycling system like Earth's water cycle
This equatorial region has mountains (pale areas) and sand dunes (the black linear features).
mountains
mountains
dunes
dunes
The feature is dome-shaped
Bright from fresh ice but has a dark central pit.
Lines that seem to be flow structures.
ICE VOLCANO
Sotra Facula:A bright spot in Titan's sand sea
Etna, Italy
Meru, Tanzania
St. Helens, Washington USA
Tohil, Io
Sif, VenusLaki, Iceland
Sotra Facula, Titan
SP Crater, Arizona USASotra and similar
volcanoes in false colorSotra facula,Titan
Maat Mons,Venus
St. Helens, WA
TethysThey are big enough to be round, but vary in their amount of geological activity.
EnceladusDione Iapetus
Rhea
Mimas
Saturn has 6 medium-sized moons.
This is a false color image taken during Cassini’s approach to this moon.
• The south pole of Enceladus is covered in recent faults!
• This suggests some unknown, but complex, internal activity is occurring.
This colorized image shows the enormous extent of the faint plume.
Water eruption plume
• Enceladus has live volcanic ice eruptions! – The water freezes into ice particles and
rises in a plume over 300 miles high. • Water and carbon molecules
Inside Enceladus
Ice crustGlobal ocean
Rock core
• Enceladus has ‘forced libraton’
• (rocking back and forth toward Saturn)
• Maybe this causes enough heating to melt an internal global ocean
The volcanism on Enceladus is a major source for the particles for Saturn's outer rings. Here Enceladus emits water in the middle of the E ring .
E
EnceladusVolcanic plume
Enceladus and E Ring
Uranus’ midsized moons
Varying amounts of geological activity, Mostly ancient tectonics
Neptune’s Moon Triton
Neptune’s Moon Triton• Similar to Pluto,
but larger
• Evidence for past geological activity
Icy Volcanism on Triton
Spouts of nitrogen geysering above
the surface
Why are mid-sized icy worlds more geologically active than
mid-sized rocky planets?
Rocky Worlds vs. Icy Worlds
• Rock melts at higher temperatures
• Only large rocky planets have enough heat for activity
• Ice melts at lower temperatures
• Fine forcing motions can melt internal ice, driving activity
What have we learned?
• What is special about Titan?– Titan has strong active processes like Galileans– Titan is the only moon with a thick atmosphere– Titan is the only moon with liquid rivers and lakes.– Has former (current??) ice volcano
What have we learned?
• Why are mid-sized icy worlds more geologically active than same-sized rocky worlds?– Many other major moons show geological activity.– 3 of gas giants have an actively volcanic moon.
– Ice melts and deforms at lower temperatures enabling tidal heating or other orbital forcing to drive activity
Pluto: Lone Dog No More
• Our goals for learning
• What are the large objects of the Kuiper belt like?
• What is Pluto like?
Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs)• Some KBOs are very
large, much more so than asteroids.
• Pluto is one, several have been so far found.
• large, icy objects are round, but have orbits similar to the smaller objects
• So are they very large comets or very small planets?
What is Pluto like?
• Pluto is very cold (40 K) • It has 5 moons. The largest, Charon, is nearly
as large as Pluto itself (probably made by a major impact)
• Pluto has a thin nitrogen atmosphere that will refreeze onto the surface as Pluto’s orbit takes it farther from the Sun.
New Horizons Flyby June 2015
• Atmosphere with a methane haze, similar to Titan
• Thickness?
Pluto & Charon (Enhanced Color)• Taken in blue, red
and IR light• Red color is tholin
dust – Complex
hydrocarbons (solid smog!)
• Tholins are at Pluto’s equator and Charon’s pole