| Session Details | |
| Section | PS - Planetary Sciences |
| Session Title | Active Satellites in the Solar System |
| Main Convener | Dr. Steven Vance (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, United States) |
| Co-convener(s) | Dr. Dennis Matson (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, United States) Dr. Athena Coustenis (Paris Observatory, France) Dr. Ashley Davies (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, United States) |
| Session Description | This is a session of contributed and invited papers on the geophysics of satellites, especially those that are currently active — Io, Enceladus, Triton, and possibly Europa and Ganymede. Research is progressing rapidly due to the stream of new spacecraft data. Welcome are papers on processes that affect the interiors of individual bodies as well as the surface expressions they produce. Included are the affects and chronology of internal heating (e.g., radioactivity, tidal dissipation, and other), structural evolution (e.g., differentiation), tides, and other processes. These geophysical processes themselves are universal in their application and transcend the compartmentalization suggested by nomenclature such as “satellite,” “dwarf planet,” “asteroid,” “comet,” “KBO,” “TNO,” “parent body,” and “planetesimal”. |