Enceladus's gravity and shape have been explained in terms of a thick isostatic ice shell floating on a global ocean, in contradiction of the thin shell implied by librations. Here we propose a new isostatic model minimizing crustal deviatoric stress and demonstrate that gravity and shape data predict a 38 ± 4 km thick ocean beneath a 23 ± 4 km thick shell agreeing with—but independent of—libration data. Isostatic and tidal stresses are comparable in magnitude. South polar crust is only 7 ± 4 km thick, facilitating the opening of water conduits and enhancing tidal dissipation through stress concentration. Enceladus's resonant companion, Dione, is in a similar state of minimum stress isostasy. Its gravity and shape can be explained in terms of a 99 ± 23 km thick isostatic shell overlying a 65 ± 30 km thick global ocean, thus providing the first clear evidence for a present‐day ocean within Dione.

The intense plume activity at the South Pole of Enceladus together with the recent detection of libration hints at an internal water ocean underneath the outer ice shell. However, the interpretation of gravity, shape, and libration data leads to contradicting results regarding the depth of ocean/ice interface and the total volume of the ocean. Here we develop an interior structure model consisting of a rocky core, an internal ocean, and an ice shell, which satisfies simultaneously the gravity, shape, and libration data. We show that the data can be reconciled by considering isostatic compensation including the effect of a few hundred meter thick elastic lithosphere. Our model predicts that the core radius is 180–185 km, the ocean density is at least 1030 kg/m3, and the ice shell is 18–22 km thick on average. The ice thicknesses are reduced at poles decreasing to less than 5 km in the south polar region.

International audiencePhobos and Deimos, the two small satellites of Mars, are thought either to be asteroids captured by the planet or to have formed in a disc of debris surrounding Mars following a giant impact. Both scenarios, however, have been unable to account for the current Mars system. Here we use numerical simulations to suggest that Phobos and Deimos accreted from the outer portion of a debris disc formed after a giant impact on Mars. Larger moons are formed from the denser inner disc and migrate outwards due to gravitational interactions with it. The resulting orbital resonances spread outwards and gather the dispersed debris, facilitating accretion into two satellites of sizes similar to Phobos and Deimos. The larger inner moons fall back to Mars after about 5 million years due to the tidal pull of the planet, after which the two outer satellites evolve into Phobos- and Deimos-like orbits. Our results clarify why Mars has two small satellites instead of one large moon. Our model predicts that Phobos and Deimos are composed of a mixture of material from Mars and the impactor

Enceladus is characterized by a south polar hot spot associated with a large outflow of heat, the source of which remains unclear. We compute the heat generated via viscous dissipation resulting from tidal and (longitudinal) libration forcing in the moon's subsurface ocean using the linearized Navier‐Stokes equation in a three‐dimensional spherical model. We conclude that libration is the dominant cause of dissipation at the linear order, providing up to ∼0.001 GW of heat to the ocean, which remains insufficient to explain the ∼10 GW observed by Cassini. We also illustrate how resonances with inertial modes can significantly augment the dissipation. Our work is an extension to Rovira‐Navarro et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2018.11.010) to include the effects of libration and the presence of the icy crust. The model developed here is readily applicable to the study of other moons with a subsurface ocean and planets with a liquid core.

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