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  • Presentation | P21E: Geology and Geophysics of Active Satellites and Small Bodies Poster
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  • P21E-2658: Does Minimal Reorientation of Herschel Crater Prohibit an Ocean Within Mimas?
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Author(s):
Szilárd Gyalay, SETI Institute Mountain View (First Author, Presenting Author)
Francis Nimmo, University of California, Santa Cruz


Like other icy moons of Saturn, Mimas is considered by many to hide an ocean beneath its heavily-cratered surface. This is because its ice shell would be separated from the core by that ocean, allowing the ice shell to move freely and explain some peculiarities of Mimas’ orbital dynamics. However, satellites are known to reorient relative to their axis of rotation in response to a change in its surface. For example, an impact crater’s cavity is a deficit of mass compared to other parts of the surface. The satellite would then want to reorient such that this crater migrates to a polar region through a process known as “true polar wander.” This migration is easier to accomplish if there is a subsurface ocean (due to being decoupled from the core). But then why is Mimas’ largest crater situated at the equator rather than at a pole? We find if we consider this crater as a mass deficit, it is rather hard for this crater to migrate away from the equator even in the case of an ocean. However, this requires the slim chance that the crater formed near the equator in the first place.



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