Outer Worlds 3: Active Worlds Flashcards
How are Io’s volcanoes similar/different from volcanoes elsewhere in the solar system?
Surface has zero impact craters
Covered in volcanoes
Has no water ice, made completely of rock (burned off volatiles)
Surface continuously turns inside out
Outer surface made of sulfur
Sulfur becomes low viscosity and flows on surface and gives the surface it’s orange/red color
Io is in a 2 to 1 resonance with jupiter - orbit is more eccentric and shape of satellite changes
Why might Europa be an interesting place to look for life?
Under ice there is a global ocean of water
Has organic material - carbonaceous chondrites
might have life
What is powering Enceladus?
High albedo, very small, young surface, many fractures
Throws material to Saturns E-ring - the ring is outside the roche limit so there shouldnt be a ring but enceladus is replenishing it.
Fractures are a result of the world shrinking, Enceladus is losing its mass fast
Cant be tidal heating because Mimas would have tidal heating as well because it is closer to a resonance.
Chemical heat source between the rocky core and ice crust; endothermic heat…caused the global ocean…this isnt usually significant unless the world is very small
Why are they so geologically active?
Too small to go through radioactive decay
Io - tidal heating
Enceladus - endothermic heating
