AST-1A Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Ice Giant, Gas Giant, Cryovolcano
Document Summary
Lowest density of any planet (could float in water). Solid core surrounded by liquid metallic hydrogen. Most oblate (equatorial diam. exceeds polar diam. ) Composed of mostly ice chunks and small rock pieces from comets, asteroids and shattered moon pieces. Ice chunks reflect light making the rings so visable. Titan second largest moon in the solar system. Has lakes, rivers and rain of liquid methane. Huygens probe landed on titan in 2005. Icy crust and believed to have a liquid ocean of water below crust. Small icy moon which contains an icy subsurface ocean. Geysers spew out liquid water called cryovolcanism. Cassini space craft flew through water expelled from a geyser and sampled it. Geysers come out of fractures on the surface called tiger stripes. Most of the water falls back to the surface as snow. The rest turns into ice and supplies the material for saturn"s e-ring.
