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Why is Enceladus warmer than it should be? One possible answer is that it may have captured a primordial microscopic black hole that was created during the Big Bang. Since the black hole is very tiny, it is just large enough to radiate enough energy due to Hawking radiation as it takes in from infalling matter from Enceladus itself, thus Enceladus and the black hole are converting a small portion of itself to energy with 100% efficiency, and all that waste heat is going to heat up the surrounding moon to a temperature that is warmer than it should be. We don't know exactly when this black hole was captured, if that was the case. It could be that the black hole is slowly getting larger as time passes and it will turn Enceladus into a mini sun for a time, before that satellite gets swallowed by that black hole at its core.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/tiger- … ing-bright
I think I mentioned earlier for terraforming about making Enceladus into an artificial Sun for terraforming Saturn. I think though it would take a long time for the black hole to grow large enough to turn Enceladus into an artificial Sun if that is the case.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus
Last edited by Tom Kalbfus (2017-03-22 10:24:14)
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A friend of mine (invited to return here) has wondered if Enceladus' activity is due to heavy comet impact aeons ago.
Original registration - May 2002
[i]I want that Million Year Picnic on Mars[/i]
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This topic contains two elements that (hopefully) match up pretty well with the link below ...
The topic is about a block hole, although specifically a small one, ** and ** it contains a reference to Hawking Radiation ...
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/stephen … 07345.html
The article at the link above is about verification/validation of Stephen Hawking's prediction about what would happen to the surface area if two black holes merge.
The research reported above (appears to support) the conjecture that the surface area of the resulting black hole would be greater than the sum of the individual black holes.
I have no idea how one might compute the surface area of a black hole, but apparently ** someone ** knows how to accomplish that.
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Let us hope that it isn't the case. The accretion disk around a black hole is hot enough to emit x-rays in the gamma ray spectrum. If the singularity is increasing in mass, then eventually, what is left of Enceladus will be hot enough to ionise the upper atmosphere on Earth. One indication of the presence of such an internal energy source would be a large amount of hydrogen escaping from Enceladus, which would created as x-rays and charged particles ionise the water. A lot of excess hydrogen would be a strong indication of nuclear fusion occurring around a singularity in the core.
A worthwhile question is why Enceladus would capture a singularity, whilst Jupiter and Saturn apparently did not? I think tidal interactions with Titan and Saturn are a more likely source of heat. Impacts have added heat to the outer shell, which would have the effect of reducing local thermal gradients. Ongoing differentiation is also a possible heat source. Maybe there is an unexpectedly high proportion of pottasium, thorium or uranium in the rocky core?
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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This is the only topic we have containing the word Enceladus. Rather than create a new one, I'll just go with the flow...
A relative sent a link to this story about Phosphorus found there...
Saturn's icy moon Enceladus harbors essential elements for life
High concentrations of phosphorus, an essential element for all biological processes on Earth, have been detected in ice crystals spewed from the interior ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus, adding to its potential to harbor life, researchers reported on Wednesday.Read in Reuters: https://apple.news/AEdBOLR4DRnGKft1uQpACjQ
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It seems to me that a forward looking entrepreneur could set up a business flowing Phosphorus from Enceladus to customers throughout the Solar System.
As I understand it, Earth distributes Phosphorus from Africa to Brazil via winds over the Atlantic.
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The basic elements that compose DNA are five atoms: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, and hydrogen. A nucleoside is the combination of these atoms into two structures, a five- carbon sugar molecule called deoxyribose, which is responsible for the name of DNA, and a phosphate group.Basic Molecular Biology: Basic Science - DNA Structure
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