New measurements of the thickness of the snowdrifts on Escalades, Saturn's own orbiting winter wonderland, suggest that it may be experiencing a relative dry spell.
The deposits of ice particles dropping out of polar geysers could be up to 700 meters (approximately 2,300 feet) deep in some places, something that current eruptions cannot account for, according to calculations based on the sizes of a series of depressions called tectonic pit chains.
A new study by the National Air and Space Museum's Emily Martin, the study's first author and research physical scientist, suggests that the findings may indicate that the frozen moon experienced significantly more active times in the past.
Escalades are the sparkling jewel in Saturn's frozen crown, despite having a diameter of only 500 kilometers (just over 300 miles). The moon not only has an ice shell that is very reflective, but it also has a deep, liquid ocean of salty water that is just waiting to be explored for signs of life.
Escalades' frozen shell is frequently massaged by tidal forces as a result of a regular tug-of-war between Saturn and the more distant moon Dion. This tug-of-war causes cracks to form in the thinner regions of the crust near the South Pole of the moon.
Water that has been pressurized makes its way into these cracks, where it expands and vaporizes before exploding into a near-vacuum supersonic blizzard of snap-frozen particles.
In order to contribute to Saturn's magnificent rings, a portion of this frozen ocean spray enters orbit around the planet. Planetary scientists call the drifts of heavier particles that fall back onto the moon's surface a type of regolith.
High-resolution Cassini images that US researchers claimed to show pit chains, or geological formations, dotted the surface of Escalades were published in 2017.
These crater-like structures, like lava tubes or karat cave systems, can form when surface material suddenly sinks into a void on other planets, including Earth.
Black-and-white images of pit chains on Earth, Mars, and other moons and asteroids The morphology of pit chains throughout the Solar System Martin and others, Icarus, 2017 Planetary scientists came to the conclusion that the circular and elliptical pits, some of which are up to a kilometer across, were formed as fractures in the crust beneath loose drifts of regolith extended and widened, ruling out a source of impacts and a variety of other geological activities.
Conveniently, researchers can learn something about the properties and formation of the regolith that is crumbling into the pits from its width and depth, including an estimate of its thickness.
The formulas were applied to the Escalades craters and revealed snow thicknesses of approximately 250 meters, with some depths reaching approximately 700 meters.
One way Escalades could accumulate enough snow over the next few billion years is if the drifts were as fluffy and porous as possible, taking into account the rate at which plumes of icy ocean water could deliver the necessary amount of snow.
Although it is possible, it is more likely that the snow has a mixture of porosities and densities, leading the researchers to conclude that the rate of snowfall must have been occasionally much higher in the past.
This suggests that the geysers might have once been roaring really loudly, or that Escalades may have had additional plumes that released frozen water vapor. If not either
For future missions to land probes on the moon's surface, it would be crucial to know how thick and fluffy the snow is in important places.
In the meantime, learning more about how Escalades' cryptovolcanic activity has developed provides fresh insights into one of the most fascinating bodies in the Solar System.
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