Dione

moons of Saturn: Dione

Dione, fourth nearest of the major regular moons of Saturn. It was discovered by the Italian-born French astronomer Gian Domenico Cassini in 1684 and named for a daughter of the Titan Oceanus in Greek mythology.

Dione has a diameter of 1,120 km (696 miles) and revolves around Saturn in a prograde, nearly circular orbit at a mean distance of 377,400 km (234,500 miles), which is within the outer part of Saturn’s tenuous E ring. It is accompanied in its orbit by two much smaller moons, Helene and Polydeuces (also named for Greek mythological figures). Helene, which has a diameter of about 30 km (20 miles), maintains a gravitationally stable position 60° ahead of Dione. Polydeuces has less than half the diameter of Helene and follows Dione by 60°, though with large deviations from its mean position. The orbits of these tiny companion moons can be compared to those of Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.

Tidal interactions with Saturn have slowed Dione’s rotation so that it now turns synchronously with its orbital motion, always keeping the same hemisphere toward the planet and always leading with the same hemisphere in orbit. The surface of Dione shows substantial brightness contrasts, with the trailing hemisphere generally darker than the leading one. On average, however, Dione is highly reflective, which indicates a surface composed of large amounts of relatively uncontaminated water ice, some of which may come from Saturn’s distended E ring. Besides water ice, the surface is composed of trace amounts of carbon dioxide ice and small particles of iron. The moon’s low density, which is 1.5 times that of water, is consistent with a bulk composition of about equal amounts of ice and rock. Dione is heavily covered in places with impact craters; their density and distribution of sizes suggest a geologic age close to four billion years. In other areas, however, the crater density is lower, which suggests that the moon may have experienced substantial ice melting and resurfacing. It is also possible that Dione’s surface is continually coated by new ice particles deposited from the E ring.

Most of Dione’s craters are found on the bright, leading hemisphere. The opposite hemisphere is broken by many bright linear features that form a polygonal network. Some of these bright features are associated with linear troughs and ridges and may have been caused by episodic tectonic activity. At least one feature near the south pole is similar to the “tiger stripes” at the southern polar region of Enceladus, from which the active plumes of Enceladus originate. Some low level of geologic activity on Dione is suggested by the effect the moon has on the charged particles associated with Saturn’s magnetic field. Wispy features seen in Voyager spacecraft images had been thought to be deposits of recondensed volatile material that erupted from Dione’s interior along linear fractures. Higher-resolution images from the Cassini spacecraft, however, show no evidence of such activity, although large cliffs appear at the same location as the wispy features. The brighter appearance of these features is most likely caused by differences in particle sizes of the ice and the effects of illumination. The asymmetry of the moon’s surface is not understood, although there is evidence of a major impact near the centre of the linear network on the trailing hemisphere.

Like many objects in orbit around Saturn, Dione is involved in an orbital resonance; i.e., its 66-hour trip around Saturn is twice that of the nearer moon Enceladus. This relationship has been proposed as a source of the dramatic tidal heating seen in Enceladus, but the details of this mechanism have not been worked out.