Thursday, December 29, 2011

A couple of comparisons between Enceladus and Earth's Moon

Enceladus' mean radius is 252 km;  Earth's Moon is 1738 km, so Enceladus is roughly 1/6 to  1/7 the size of Earth's Moon.

It takes Enceladus 1.37 days to orbit Saturn once;  obviously it takes Earth's  Moon about 28 days.   The semi-major axis of the orbit of Enceladus is  238,000 km.  Assuming circularity (this is a rough calculation), then the circumference of the orbit is 1,495,398 km - close enough to 1,500,000 km.

The semi-major axis of the Moon's orbit is 385,000 km, so the circumference of the orbit is about 2,420,000 km. 

Orbital speed of Enceladus:  1,500,000 km/32.9 hours = 45,600 km/hr

Orbital speed of Earth's Moon:  2,420,000 km/672 hours = 3600 km/hr

Wow.

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