Mar 15,
2007
The Moving “Geysers” of
Enceladus
We've stated many times on
these pages that the most critical test of a theory is its
predictive ability. Images from the Saturnian moon Enceladus
offer such confirmation for Wallace Thornhill and his
“Electric Universe” colleagues.
The "spectacular" nature of the Saturnian moon Enceladus has
been the subject of more than one previous TPOD. We've
discussed the "startling" discovery of a
hot spot around Enceladus' south pole (an indication of
electric currents coursing through Saturn’s moon and
connected with the electric circuits in Saturn’s plasma
sheath). We've enumerated the evidence of
electrical discharge machining (EDM) processes in the
past, carving intricate channel networks across vast
portions of the moon’s surface. And we've discussed the
explosive jets that the icy moon emits, which NASA has
called "liquid water reservoirs that erupt in
Yellowstone-like geysers.”
It seems that Cassini’s findings have flipped everything
scientists thought they knew about Enceladus on its head.
Yet the Cassini team still clings to old assumptions: the
investigators simply assume that the astonishing plume
activity can only be due to internal processes.
Enceladus is a small icy moon about the size of Iowa. Prior
to the Cassini mission, everyone knew that such a small moon
could not support active “geology” or tectonic movement.
This was why the jets so caught them by surprise. The
official Cassini website states, “The source of geological
activity on Enceladus is a mystery. ‘We're amazed to see ice
geysers on this little world that was thought to be cold and
dead long ago,’ commented Dr. Dale Cruikshank of NASA Ames
Research center, a member of the visual and infrared mapping
spectrometer team. ‘Some unexpected process is vigorously
heating the interior of Enceladus, especially the south
polar region, and causing the ejection of the plumes of ice
particles.’"
In other words, the shock from seeing the inconceivable was
not great enough to shake the Cassini team from a purely
ideological assumption.
In the March 13th TPOD “The Jets of Enceladus,” we wrote:
“Electrical theorist Wallace Thornhill and his colleagues
suggest there is no geyser of subsurface water analogous to
the Yellowstone geyser. They say that if NASA will look they
will find that the jets move across the surface. And in
their motion across the surface, the electric arcs that
produce the jets are creating the observed channels as they
excavate material from the surface and accelerate it into
space.”
It turns out that NASA has had sufficient data in hand for
at least several months confirming that the jets do indeed
move across the surface (see for example
this video, in which the jets move in opposition to the
visual rotation of the sphere). Hence, any comparison with
Yellowstone’s “Old Faithful” is spurious.
All of the evidence gathered by Cassini supports the
electrical interpretation. The arcs that have cut undulating
and entwining filamentary channels point to the same force
responsible for the energetic plumes. In electrical terms,
the location of the hot spots at the south pole – a
most improbable location in conventional theory – is surely
no coincidence. And we can say with confidence that every
attempt to find an internal source for the Enceladus plumes
will prove futile.
Coming tomorrow: Enceladus Plumes "Explained"?