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Cassini Encounters Enceladus: Background and the Discovery of a South Polar Hot Spot
Abstract
The Cassini spacecraft completed three close flybys of Saturn's enigmatic moon Enceladus between February and July 2005. On the third and closest flyby, on 14 July 2005, multiple Cassini instruments detected evidence for ongoing endogenic activity in a region centered on Enceladus' south pole. The polar region is the source of a plume of gas and dust, which probably emanates from prominent warm troughs seen on the surface. Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) detected 3 to 7 gigawatts of thermal emission from the south polar troughs at temperatures up to 145 kelvin or higher, making Enceladus only the third known solid planetary body—after Earth and Io—that is sufficiently geologically active for its internal heat to be detected by remote sensing. If the plume is generated by the sublimation of water ice and if the sublimation source is visible to CIRS, then sublimation temperatures of at least 180 kelvin are required.
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Cited by
Cassini Observes the Active South Pole of Enceladus
Porco, C. C., Helfenstein, P., Thomas, P. C., Ingersoll, A. P., Wisdom, J., West, R., Neukum, G., Denk, T., Wagner, R., Roatsch, T., et al. (2006) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1123013 · Cited by 1,221
Cassini finds molecular hydrogen in the Enceladus plume: Evidence for hydrothermal processes
Waite, J. H., Glein, C. R., Perryman, R. S., Teolis, B. D., Magee, B. A., Miller, G., Grimes, J., Perry, M. E., Miller, K. E., Bouquet, A., et al. (2017) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.aai8703 · Cited by 580
Macromolecular organic compounds from the depths of Enceladus
Postberg, F., Khawaja, N., Abel, B., Choblet, G., Glein, C. R., Gudipati, M. S., Henderson, B. L., Hsu, H.-W., Kempf, S., Klenner, F., et al. (2018) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0246-4 · Cited by 447
Glein, C. R., Baross, J. A., & Waite, J. H. (2015) · Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta · doi:10.1016/j.gca.2015.04.017 · Cited by 276
The Possible Origin and Persistence of Life on Enceladus and Detection of Biomarkers in the Plume
McKay, C. P., Porco, C. C., Altheide, T., Davis, W. L., & Kral, T. A. (2008) · Astrobiology · doi:10.1089/ast.2008.0265 · Cited by 195
Metadata
- Authors
- Spencer, J. R., Pearl, J. C., Segura, M., Flasar, F. M., Mamoutkine, A., Romani, P., Buratti, B. J., Hendrix, A. R., Spilker, L. J., & Lopes, R. M. C.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 2006-03-10
- Volume
- 311
- Issue
- 5766
- Pages
- 1401-1405
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W1989657194
- Cited by
- 572
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 28.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Cassini Encounters Enceladus: Background and the Discovery of a South Polar Hot Spot. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1126/science.1121661
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- Spencer, J. R., Pearl, J. C., Segura, M., Flasar, F. M., Mamoutkine, A., Romani, P., Buratti, B. J., Hendrix, A. R., Spilker, L. J., & Lopes, R. M. C. (2006). Cassini Encounters Enceladus: Background and the Discovery of a South Polar Hot Spot. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1121661
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