Enceladus, the cold moon with a heart of warm fluff

摘要

In the cold of space, a tiny moon is keeping warm with the help of a fluffy heart. Enceladus, the pipsqueak of a world renowned for shooting huge watery plumes into space as it orbits Saturn, has a secret - a core that contradicts everything we thought we knew about the structure of planetary bodies. Planets and moons usually follow the classic "onion" model - an outer crust or atmosphere over a large mantle, with a sphere of dense material at the core. But new research presented at the Geological Society of America meeting in Vancouver on 19 October suggests Enceladus isn't following the rules.