TUNA Lunch Talk:

Wendy Tseng

Institute of Astronomy, NCU, Taiwan

Jets from comets and Enceladus

May 13

12:10PM, Room 230, NRAO, Edgemont Road

Abstract:

A remarkable discovery by Cassini in July 2005 is that Enceladus is active, ejecting water vapor and icy particles from its south pole into Saturn's magnetosphere. This discovery gives rise to a lot of interesting questions such as the heat source of south pole and if there is any liquid water underneath the surface. The answers to these issues are still open. Cassini has another successful flyby on Enceladus on March 12, 2008. A variety of organic molecules in the plumes were detected by the INMS instrument. It is astonishing that what is coming out of Enceladus is similar to the cometary chemical composition. When comets approach the Sun, comets also have jets. In this talk, we would like to discuss the comparisons of the jets of comets with the plume of Enceladus in aspect of gas dynamics and dust.