Year: 2015-2016
Grade: 5th and 6th
City: Maracaibo
Teachers: Adan Rincon, Jesus Perozo
Target: Rings and Moons
Team members:
Juan Diego Hernandez Rodriguez Liceo Los Robles
Maurizio Urdaneta Liceo Los Robles
Salvatore lonigro Liceo Los Robles
Sebastian Cacique Liceo Los Robles
Mateo Maiale (team leader) Liceo Los Robles
Maria Fernanda Paz (team leader) Colegio Altamira
Francesco Gonnella (team leader) Liceo Los Robles
Miguel Blazques (team leader) Liceo Los Robles
Fernando Delgado Liceo Los Robles
Isabel Delgado Colegio Altamira
Jose Alberto Urdaneta Liceo Los Robles
Alsifredo Bracho Liceo Los Robles
Nicolas Cacique Liceo Los Robles
Santiago Sulbaran Liceo Los Robles
Ignacio Rincon Liceo Los Robles
Alejandro Marmol Perozo Liceo Los Robles
Jorge Matheus Liceo Los Robles
Luis Hernandez Liceo Los Robles
Hernando Novoa Liceo Los Robles
Santiago Uzcategui Liceo Los Robles
"We chose target 1 because Enceladus is an astonishing moon, with young fresh craters, none too big. It's a very brilliant moon, big as Arizona and, in our opinion, very similar to Mimas. Enceladus calls our attention as a photographic target, its white terrain, clean, crater free, with lots of "tiger" stripes due to its inner geological activity, astonishing geysers indicating strong geological activity, with temperatures around -200 Celsius. The moon perhaps has a global ocean and a "half an atmosphere" in its south polar region, according to what we understood in a video from the von Karman lecture series, given by Dr. Amanda Hendrix. We would like to photograph this target in order to observe any possible undiscovered interaction with Tethys, Mimas and of course the Rings of Saturn. It's intriguing for us as we observed the videos from the JPL website that Tethys doesn't have so many craters as Dione and Rhea. Perhaps new Tiger stripes have appeared since Cassini's last visit? Will there be any color variations in its surface? We think that perhaps with so many geological activities a big fracture in its surface, due to a seism or earthquake could reveal some tectonic features that may give clues to its inner structure¡!
With a supposedly inner liquid ocean we would like to see the possibility - perhaps- of a living being, lying dead on its white pristine surface, that may have been ejected through one of its numerous geysers. We would like to also observe Mimas, and Tethys. We are curious: why don't they have geysers also, so near to Enceladus?
Finally: what about the group gravitational interaction of these three moons with the rings? Will a new phenomenon arise in this combination?"
