A study has shown that the ocean under the thick ice that covers Saturn’s moon (moon) Enceladus, like Earth, forms an ocean current due to a difference in salinity and mixes water.
This overturns Enceladus’s existing hypothesis that the seawater under 20km-thick ice would be uniform.
According to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), a research team including Ana Robo, a graduate student in geology and planetary science, published the results of a study that analyzed the possibility of ocean currents based on the ice form of Enceladus through the scientific journal Nature Geoscience. did.
Saturn’s sixth largest moon, Enceladus, is about 500 km in diameter and is only a seventh of the Earth’s moon.
In 2014, when the Saturn probe Cassini flew close, it discovered evidence of the existence of a huge sea under the ice, and obtained a sample of water that erupted like a hot spring between the gaps in the Antarctic ice, and had liquid water with Jupiter’s moon Europa. It has been attracting attention as a celestial body.
The sea of Enceladus, like a block of ice, is quite different from the Earth.
The Earth’s sea covers two-thirds of the surface and is shallow, with an average depth of about 3.6 km. The water temperature decreases as the water gets deeper due to the influence of sunlight, and it has an ocean current that is affected by the wind.
Enceladus covers the entire satellite under thick ice in the sea, and its depth is over 30 km. Water temperature decreases as it rises from the bottom to the top, contrary to Earth’s, due to the heat of the satellite’s core (core).
Despite this difference, the research team analyzed that the two seas share an important characteristic of salty water, and for this reason, they have similar ocean currents. Like the Southern Ocean currents around Antarctica, Enceladus seawater creates a water flow due to the difference in salinity.
The research team drew this conclusion based on the results of previous research by Professor Cassini, who has studied the process of mixing seawater through the interaction of water and ice around Antarctica as a co-author of the paper along with the data observed by Lake Cassini.
From the gravity and heat measured and calculated by the Cassini, it was confirmed that the ice covering Enceladus was thinner at the poles than at the equator, which is likely related to melting ice at the poles and freezing at the equator.
The research team explained that when the ice freezes, salt is released, and the salt in the surrounding seawater becomes higher, and when the ice melts, the salinity decreases, resulting in a flow of water.
Using a computer model based on Professor Thompson’s research results, the research team showed that an area where ice, identified as an ice structure, and an area where it melts, are connected to an ocean current, which forms an ocean current from the Enceladus polar to the equator, resulting in water temperature. It was said to indicate that it affects the distribution of nutrients and nutrients.
“Under Enceladus’ ice, understanding which areas are best suited for life,” Thompson said, “will influence future life exploration efforts.”
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