Saturn's Moon Enceladus Has Global Subsurface Ocean

An anonymous reader writes: NASA's Cassini probe has made another fascinating discovery: Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, has an underground ocean spanning its entire globe. Researchers were trying to explain why the moon wobbles as it orbits Saturn, and they eventually came to the conclusion that its outer shell must be completely detached from its core. "The mechanisms that might have prevented Enceladus' ocean from freezing remain a mystery. Thomas and his colleagues suggest a few ideas for future study that might help resolve the question, including the surprising possibility that tidal forces due to Saturn's gravity could be generating much more heat within Enceladus than previously thought."

Comments

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[Citizen of Earth]

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Perpetual energy machine

[RenHoek]

I'm sure I'm wrong considering the laws of thermodynamics and all, but if a moon is heated by gravitational shifting, does this go on for ever? I.e. is this a perpetuum mobile?

Re:Perpetual energy machine

[WalksOnDirt]

... if a moon is heated by gravitational shifting, does this go on for ever?

No, the orbit eventually decays.

Re:Perpetual energy machine

[Tablizer]

It's NOT obvious because it's very gradual and there are multiple potential places the energy can be transferred from, such as Saturn's spin rate, the moon's orbital momentum, the moon's (past) rotation, the rings, and/or nearby moons. Resonance based energy transfer can be quite unintuitive.

Re:Perpetual energy machine

[Brett Buck]

No. Energy is being taken out every time. At some point it will become tidally locked, just like the Moon (of earth) and then the heating will stop.

   

Unknown energy

[Spinalcold]

and yet again a moon/planet is getting power by some unknown mechanism, Pluto was the other recent find. This is fascinating news! I wonder if it could be a combination of many, many small factors. Physicists (and I am studying it as an undergrad) are very prone to hacking off small factors when calculating things, thinking small factors don't contribute to the overall result, and most of the time they don't. But all the tiny factors like neutrino's, radioactive particles, other stars, gamma rays, etc etc, is there any way that the combined contribution could add up to the energy, or even a part of it, that we are failing to find? The rest of that unknown could be...I don't know, one of those energy's we are still trying to figure out, like Dark Energy or the new evidence for the Z', W' force...

I'm just throwing spit at a wall here cause it's fun. And fascinating.

I wonder if there are dead fish at the south pole?

[Aku Head]

The geysers could spit them out and they would fall back to the surface. We need an orbiter to fly through those plumes and measure what is in them.

Even more bizzare sub surface ocean!

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

That is nothing man, nothing. There is a planet with a huge subsurface ocean of iron! Yes, iron in liquid form, molten iron. It is roiling too. And because iron is magnetic the oceanic currents of this iron ocean creates a powerful magnetic field. The magnetic field powerful enough to deflect the charge particle wind from its parent star several at a distance of several planetary diameters away. The entire planet behaves as thought it has a permanent bar magnet placed along its axis! Further more these iron ocean current weaken over time, change directions and flip the polarity of the planetary magnet.

This ocean of molten iron exists just 1% of the planetary radius below the surface. Most people don't realize how close they are to this bizarre weird incredible iron ocean.

All these worlds...

[seven of five]

All these worlds are yours, except Euro^H^H^Hnceladus.
Attempt no landings there.