Grade: 6 and 7
Teachers: Carlos Solorzano, Efrain Urdaneta
Target: Rings and Moons
Juan Diego Indriago Liceo Los Robles
Roberto Fernandez (team leader) Liceo Los Robles
Luis Carlos Padron Colegio Nazareth
Jesus Perozo Liceo Los Robles
"Since we joined Los Robles Astronomy Club four years ago, our admiration has been for Saturn and its apparently frozen moons. We say apparently because we suspect that just as Enceladus has a very strong and violent geological geyser activity, we think that although up to now the other moons just present some mild color variations in their surface, we think that something on must be going on there.
We always watch the von Karman lecture series, whenever possible from our country due to electrical and internet blackouts, we always try to obtain more deep news than just navigating in internet. For instance we read in the JPL web site that perhaps Tethys also had interesting geological activity in the recent past.
We also observed some short of so-called SATURATION process were some craters appear inside older craters in Mimas ¡! What's going on there? This looks like a Sherlock Holmes mystery novel ¡!
Why wasn't Mimas, the innermost moon destroyed with that horrific impact that created the Herschel crater? What type of materials does it have in its surface or just below it that occupies half a hemisphere? If Enceladus has that "squeezing" phenomena going on, why nothing similar has been detected on Mimas then? Tethys also calls our attention, as we read at the JPL website that there might be some geyser activity also. Some type of interaction is going on in the surface of Tethys.
Going back to Enceladus, its strong thermal activity in the south pole may give new clues of what is going on in that moon, new features in its surface, perhaps the ejection of some other type of materials through its geysers may be observed and new discoveries registered of those enigmatic moons.
And last but not least we must not forget these moons interactions (whether material expulsion or gravitational interaction) with the rings; we think that by photographing that interesting sequence some new detail may be recorded."