More small icy worlds with volcanos?

[james_davis_nicoll]

Saturn's moons Tethys and Dione are flinging great streams of particles into space, according to data from the Cassini mission to Saturn. The discovery suggests the possibility of some sort of geological activity, perhaps even volcanic, on these icy worlds.

Tethys has a radius of about 530 kilometers while Dione has one of about 560 kilometers, very roughly twice that of Enceladus and very roughly a third that of the Moon.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

As Emily L. points out, this neat hypothesis is complicated by the fact that both moons have heavily cratered surfaces. That doesn't rule out geological activity, but it drastically restricts what sort.

More questions!


Doug M.

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

So if the moon is a dead planet, yet these far smaller moons either, what is the difference between them? Saturn's influence perhaps?

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

For one thing, the moon is deleted in volatiles due to the details of its origin, whereas Saturn's moons are volatile-rich.