SPECTROSCOPIC IDENTIFICATION OF E-RING DEPOSITS ON ENCELADUS USING CASSINI-VIMS DAT

Enceladus’ surface is composed mostrly of pure water ice. The Cassini spacecraft has observed present-day geologic activity at the moon’s South Polar region (the so-called “Tiger Stripes”). Plumes of micron-sized particles composed of water ice and other contaminants (CO₂, NH₃, CH₄) erupting from this region are the major source of Saturn’s E-ring. Some of this material, however, falls on Enceladus’ surface to form deposits that extend to the north at ~220°E and ~40°E and whose highest concentration is at the south pole.

The Cassini VIMS spectrometer acquires hyperspectral data in the 0.3–5.1 μm spectral range. We selected VIMS cubes of Enceladus in the IR range (0.8–5.1 μm), and minimized photometric effects due to different illumination conditions by normalizing all spectra at 2.23 μm.

We aim to identify E-ring deposits across Enceladus’ surface through the variation in band depth of the main water-ice spectral features located at 1.25, 1.5, and 2.0 μm. Since plumes deposits on the surface undergo darkening processes for less time than surrounding terrains, they appear brighter and so the water-ice absorption bands must be deeper.

For all pixels in the selected cubes, we measured the band depths for the main water-ice absorptions and the height of the 3.6 μm reflection peak, whose value relates to grain size. To characterize the global variation of water-ice band depths across Enceladus, we divided the surface into a 1°x1° grid and then averaged the band depths and peak values inside each square cell.

This approach clearly identifies plums deposits. As expected, the highest concentrations occur at Enceladus’ south pole, where band depths values are the deepest across the entire moon’s surface. Our results confirm that plume particles fall in north-oriented patterns at ~40°E and ~220°E, and disappear around ~0°E and ~180°E. In addition, we observed a possible non-plume related regional variation in all major water ice absorption bands on the leading side.