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Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn and the 18th-largest in the Solar System. ... Enceladus does not appear to librate more than 1.5° about its spin axis.
True polar wander is a solid-body rotation (or reorientation) of a planet or moon with respect to its spin axis, causing the geographic locations of the north and south poles to change, or "wander". In rotational equilibrium, a planetary body has the largest moment of inertia axis aligned with the spin axis, with the smaller two moments of ...
While on short timescales the satellite approximately rotates around its long axis at a rate of 72–75° per day, on longer timescales its axis of rotation (spin vector) wanders chaotically across the sky. [78] This makes the rotational behavior of Hyperion essentially unpredictable. [79] Iapetus is the third-largest of Saturn's moons. [53]
Several prominent examples of secular resonance involve Saturn. There is a near-resonance between the precession of Saturn's rotational axis and that of Neptune's orbital axis (both of which have periods of about 1.87 million years), which has been identified as the likely source of Saturn's large axial tilt (26.7°).
Enceladus' south pole, captured by NASA's Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, 2015. The Enceladus Orbilander is a proposed NASA Flagship mission to Saturn's moon Enceladus.The Enceladus Orbilander would spend a year and a half orbiting Enceladus and sampling its water plumes, which stretch into space, before landing on the surface for a two-year mission to study materials for evidence of life. [1]
Anthe / ˈ æ n θ iː / is a very small natural satellite of Saturn lying between the orbits of Mimas and Enceladus. It is also known as Saturn XLIX; its provisional designation was S/2007 S 4. It is named after one of the Alkyonides; the name means flowery. It is the sixtieth confirmed moon of Saturn. [5]
Unlike the main rings, the E Ring is more than 2,000 km (1000 miles) thick and increases with its distance from Enceladus. [153] Tendril-like structures observed within the E Ring can be related to the emissions of the most active south polar jets of Enceladus. [157] Particles of the E Ring tend to accumulate on moons that orbit within it.
Here, the ratio of the rotation period of a body to its own orbital period is some simple fraction different from 1:1. A well known case is the rotation of Mercury, which is locked to its own orbit around the Sun in a 3:2 resonance. [2] This results in the rotation speed roughly matching the orbital speed around perihelion. [14]