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Dryad

Inferring Mimas' spatial distribution of tidal heating from its long-wavelength topography

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Apr 19, 2024 version files 10.85 MB

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Abstract

In new work (Gyalay et al., 2023), we infer the interior of Mimas from its global shape (long-wavelength topography). To do so, we have to make various assumptions on how the ice shell of Mimas operates. This includes the temperature at the base of the ice shell, the thickness of the ice shell, what mode of isostasy it operates under (equal-mass vs. equal-pressure and Airy vs. Pratt), whether tidal tidal heating is due to eccentricity vs. obliquity, and how porous the region of the ice shell with a temperature <140 K may be. Further, as it has not yet been measured for Mimas, we must make an assumption on its moment of inertia. We vary through these assumptions and calculate how well an inferred heat distribution matches with a tidal heating distribution, among other physical self-consistency checks. In the associated paper, we analyze the dataset we produced to make conclusions on Mimas' interior structure and orbital dynamic history.