The initiation and persistence of cracks in Enceladus ’ ice shell
نویسندگان
چکیده
Introduction: The remarkable eruptions from cracks in Enceladus’ South Polar Terrain (SPT) provide a unique window into the interior of an icy satellite. Here we revisit the processes that create cracks and prevent them from freezing in light of the confirmation that Enceladus has a global ocean [1,2] and analyses of the gravity field that indicate that the ice shell is thinnest beneath the SPT where the eruptions occur [3]. We use a suite of end-member models for the dissipation of energy to explore the persistence of the cracks at Enceladus’ South pole.
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