The Gravity Field and Interior Structure of Enceladus

Inside Enceladus Saturn's moon Enceladus has often been the focus of flybys of the Cassini spacecraft. Although small—Enceladus is roughly 10 times smaller than Saturn's largest moon, Titan—Enceladus has shown hints of having a complex internal structure rich in liquid water. Iess et al. (p. 78) used long-range data collected by the Cassini spacecraft to construct a gravity model of Enceladus. The resulting gravity field indicates the presence of a large mass anomaly at its south pole. Calculations of the moment of inertia and hydrostatic equilibrium from the gravity data suggest the presence of a large, regional subsurface ocean 30 to 40 km deep. The saturnian moon is differentiated and likely hosts a regional subsurface sea at its southern pole. The small and active Saturnian moon Enceladus is one of the primary targets of the Cassini mission. We determined the quadrupole gravity field of Enceladus and its hemispherical asymmetry using Doppler data from three spacecraft flybys. Our results indicate the presence of a negative mass anomaly in the south-polar region, largely compensated by a positive subsurface anomaly compatible with the presence of a regional subsurface sea at depths of 30 to 40 kilometers and extending up to south latitudes of about 50°. The estimated values for the largest quadrupole harmonic coefficients (106J2 = 5435.2 ± 34.9, 106C22 = 1549.8 ± 15.6, 1σ) and their ratio (J2/C22 = 3.51 ± 0.05) indicate that the body deviates mildly from hydrostatic equilibrium. The moment of inertia is around 0.335MR2, where M is the mass and R is the radius, suggesting a differentiated body with a low-density core.