Year: 2018-19
Shazia Iqbal
School: Modern Middle East International School
Grade: 6
City: Riyadh
Target: Enceladus
When the teacher was explaining about the planets, all of a sudden, a question clicked in my mind that if there is any planet name which starts with the same letter of my name.
Wow!! Got it. It is Saturn. As we know that the Saturn has many moons. One of them is known as the "Enceladus" – Greek name.
This moon is in 504 km in diameter. And Enceladus completes an orbit every 1.37 days. It is a small ocean world which is covered in ice, makes it allure. The 6th largest moon of Saturn has geysers spewing water vapor.
The southern region of the Enceladus has geysers that shoot off hundreds of miles above the surface. The geysers are coming from "Tiger stripes”. These stripes look like cracks and acting like vents.
The launch of a probe "Cassini" did a remarkable job & entered orbit in 2004 by NASA. It was there for almost 13 years. It took many photos and videos. The Enceladus attracts attention due to being one of the brightest objects in the entire solar system because it almost reflects 100% of the light.
However, sometimes there are large variations in plume brightness. The water plumes (mix of salt water ice, organic material, and vapor) are so fascinating and make us enthusiastic to know more and more. These plumes look like a feather. There are pressurized subsurface chambers from which the plumes emanate.
There is a team working on another probe. This probe they are trying to send in 2020 (proposed) that will make at least seven flybys of Enceladus. Hope that resolution mass spectrometer to help us to know how they are done.
The researchers expect the possibility for the indications of life. The chances have been seen. There are researches still going on. Hope that the next probe will be successful in its mission.
The scientists have a question in mind. A liquid ocean and ice beneath the Enceladus are throwing out the water? There is a possibility that the Enceladus can have ingredients of survival for life. These are the water, chemistry and organic.
However, it is interesting that the Enceladus has geysers present at the southern pole or region. It is important to know how it generates sufficient heat, which is keeping it in a liquid state.
