| Explained! Enceladus' enigmatic tiger stripes | | | Saturn's moon Enceladus is one of the most fascinating worlds in our solar system. It has a subsurface water ocean and huge geyser-like plumes of vapor. The geysers erupt at the moon's south pole through large cracks in Enceladus' icy crust. These fissures - known to scientists as tiger stripes - have been one of the most distinctive and puzzling features on this moon since the Cassini spacecraft first spied them in 2005. Scientists have wanted to know ... how did the tiger stripes form? Why are they parallel? And why are they so evenly spaced? Now they think they have some answers. Read more. | | |
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What we're reading
From the BBC … Greenland ice melt 'is accelerating' | | | Greenland is losing ice 7 times faster than it was in the 1990s. The assessment - published yesterday in the journal Nature - comes from an international team of polar scientists who reviewed satellite observations over a 26-year period. They say Greenland's contribution to sea-level rise is currently tracking what had been regarded as a pessimistic projection of the future. It means an additional 7 centimeters (2.8 inches) of ocean rise could now be expected by the end of the century from Greenland alone. Read more. | | |
