How Saturn’s Moon Enceladus Got Its Freaky ‘Tiger Stripes’

Since 2005 , scientists have puzzled over a series of long crack see in the southern region of Saturn ’s rooted lunar month Enceladus . New inquiry explains how these so - called tiger stripes formed and why Enceladus is the only place in the solar system where these features could have come forth .

NASA ’s Cassini spacecraft spotted the stripe in 2005 , usher what appeared to be plumes of body of water frivol away up from control surface fractures , which were nickname “ tiger stripes ” on account of their orderly show . The feature article were seen as grounds that a subsurface ocean exist under Enceladus ’s gelid crust , in a flash make the Saturnian synodic month an important object of inquiry , not just from a geological linear perspective but from an astrobiological linear perspective as well .

Newresearchpublished today in Nature Astronomy is the first to excuse why these stripes are only located at the south pole and why the chap run in parallel air at roughly 35 - km ( 22 - mile ) separation . Importantly , the new newspaper also explains why similar features have not been observed on other icy objects in the solar system , such as Jupiter ’s synodic month Europa .

At left, the four tiger stripes at the south pole of Enceladus.

At left, the four tiger stripes at the south pole of Enceladus.Image: (NASA/JPL/ESA/SSI)

“ realise the tiger stripes is crucial because these are the most active and dramatic ocean - to - surface pathway have intercourse on any of the icy sea worlds in our solar system , ” explained planetary scientist Douglas Hemingway , the first author of the cogitation and a postdoc at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington , D.C. , in an email to Gizmodo . “ My colleagues had previously thought about how to make the first fracture , but we still need to empathise why there are multiple fractures and why they are roughly parallel . ”

The fissures appear as four parallel lines measuring around 130 kilometers ( 80 stat mi ) long . They ’re in a perpetual state of eruption , spew liquid urine up from the subsurface ocean below .

Using computer modeling , and by applying construct from additive elastic possibility , the research worker were able to simulate how the ice scale respond to the gradual buildup of pressure on the aerofoil . The research squad also include Maxwell Rudolph from the University of California Davis and Michael Manga from Carnegie Institution for Science .

Image:

The tiger stripes on Enceladus. The primary Baghdad fissure is second from left.Image: (NASA/Cassini)

A crucially important factor in the process has to do with Enceladus ’s highly outre orbit , which have the moon far out from Saturn and then back again . The tidal emphasis develop by this interminable grommet create rut , deforming the Sun Myung Moon , which is why Enceladus is able to maintain liquid body of water underneath its gelid crust .

These contortion are feel most powerfully at the pole , where the ice is thin . At some point in the moon ’s story , while it was going through a coolheaded - down period , water freeze beneath the caps . And because urine lucubrate when it freezes , this put tremendous pressure on the crust , causing a gigantic crack to appear at the south magnetic pole .

That an initial crack first seem at the south pole — a Panthera tigris bar dubbed “ Baghdad”—and not the north magnetic pole was merely a issue of chance , according to the new research . The primary fissure could ’ve happened at either pole , but once the Earth’s surface rive open it was n’t potential for a chap to look at the other magnetic pole . The “ tensile stresses are thereby exempt , preventing a similar loser at the polar terminal , ” write the authors in the study .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

Importantly , the Baghdad crevice remained open due to Saturn ’s somberness , allowing piss from below to get away to the surface . All this water , which fell back down as ice and snow , leave in the steady buildup of fabric along the bound of the fissure . finally , something had to give , resulting in the cracks seen 35 km away on either side of the Baghdad crevice , where the depth of the ice was around 5.2 klick ( 3.2 miles ) thick .

“ We found that the maximum deflexion stresses occur 35 km from the subsist break when the ice racing shell has sealed pliant property , ” said Hemingway .

With the two young cranny open and ptyalize out water , the process began anew in those locations . The “ sequence of fissures then cascades outwards until the loading becomes too weak or the background shell thickness becomes too great to permit through - going fractures , ” according to the field . In this case , the operation resulted in a total of two lowly crack and one third scissure , dubbed Damascus , Cairo , and Alexandria ( these name are borrowed from Arabian Nights ) .

William Duplessie

agree to the models , the tiger stripes could only happen on a moon with the mass of Enceladus , which measures roughly 500 kilometers ( 310 mile ) in diameter . Hemingway described this termination as one of the most interesting result of the sketch .

“ For magnanimous moons , the somberness is so unassailable that it overwhelms the bending stress so that this form of fracture would not be able to bust all the path through the Methedrine eggshell , ” he told Gizmodo . “ This mechanism really only works when the soberness is very weak , which is the case for Enceladus . Even though that was not something we were originally looking to explain , it is arguably one of the most authoritative questions about the Panthera tigris stripe .

In damage of next step , Hemingway said it would be useful to assume the Panthera tigris stripe with high - resolution data to try out their model , as the current study “ used some simplifications and approximations ” that made the open seem “ static and elastic , ” and not as dynamic as in real life . Also , one of the predictions made in the study is that the secondary bar are around 100,000 old age , or possibly 1 million years , younger than the primary Baghdad fissure .

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