Creation Moment 6/4/2023 - "E-ring" Problem for Long Age Chronology

Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Hebrews 1:2

 

"Webb Telescope finds towering plume of water escaping from Saturn moon (Southwest Research Institute, 30 May 2023). “Two Southwest Research Institute scientists were part of a James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team that observed a towering plume of water vapor more than 6,000 miles long — roughly the distance from the U.S. to Japan — spewing from the surface of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus.” The diameter of Enceladus is only about 300 miles, roughly the width of Arizona or Iowa.

Read some of the superlatives about this geyser plume by amazed scientists, like Christopher Glein at SwRI:

“In the years since NASA’s Cassini spacecraft first looked at Enceladus, we never cease to be amazed by what we find is happening on this extraordinary moon.”

Once again, the latest observations made with Webb’s Near InfraRed Spectrograph have yielded remarkable results.

“When I was looking at the data, at first, I was thinking I had to be wrong, it was just so shocking to map a plume more than 20 times the diameter of the moon,” said Geronimo Villanueva of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of the recent paper. “The plume extends far beyond what we could have imagined.”

The problem of how long this level of activity could persist is ignored by the scientists. As usual, they sidestep to speculate whether the presence of water ice indicates there could be life on the moon.

“Enceladus is one of the most dynamic objects in the solar system and is a prime target in humanity’s search for life beyond Earth,” said Glein, a leading expert in extraterrestrial oceanography….

Dr. Silvia Protopapa, an expert in the compositional analysis of icy bodies in the solar system who was also on the Cycle 1 team.  “This serves as a stunning testament to Webb’s extraordinary abilities. I’m thrilled to be part of the Cycle 2 team as we initiate our search for new indications of habitability and plume activity on Enceladus.” …

“We will search for specific indicators of habitability, such as organic signatures and hydrogen peroxide,” Glein said….

The new observations will provide the best remote opportunity to search for habitability indicators on the surface….

---And yet it is unthinkable that eruptive activity this vigorous could continue for billions of years. Enceladus spews out so much water and ice, it creates a huge ring around Saturn’s main rings, called the E-ring. The torus-shaped ring even affects Saturn’s powerful magnetic field.

Webb’s sensitivity reveals a new story about Enceladus and

how it feeds the water supply for the entire system of Saturn and its rings. As Enceladus whips around the gas giant in just 33 hours, the moon spews water, leaving a halo, almost like a donut, in its wake. The plume is not only huge, but the water spreads across Saturn’s dense E-ring. JWST data indicate that roughly 30 percent of the water stays in the moon’s wake, while the other 70 percent escapes to supply the rest of the Saturnian system.

James Webb telescope discovers gargantuan geyser on Saturn’s moon, blasting water hundreds of miles into space (Space.com, 30 May 2023). Does reporter Isobel Whitcomb discuss the dating problem with Enceladus?

This isn’t the first time scientists have seen Enceladus spout water, but the new telescope’s wider perspective and higher sensitivity showed that the jets of vapor shoot much farther into space than previously realized — many times deeper, in fact, than the width of Enceladus itself.

Then comes the hydrobioscopy in a big philosophical burp:

Analysis revealed that the jets contained methane, carbon

dioxide and ammonia — organic molecules containing chemical building blocks necessary for the development of life. It’s even possible that some of these gases were produced by life itself, burping out methane deep beneath the surface of Enceladus, an international team of researchers posited in research published last year in The Planetary Science Journal.

Water is another piece of evidence in the case for possible life on Enceladus. Enceladus is totally encrusted in a thick layer of water ice, but measurements of the moon’s rotation suggest that a vast ocean is hidden beneath that frozen crust. Scientists think the spurts of water sensed by JWST and Cassini come from hydrothermal vents in the ocean floor — a hypothesis supported by the presence of silica, a common ingredient in planetary crusts, in the vapor plumes.

---Neither press release even talks about whether this activity could last for thousands of years, let alone millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, or 4.5 billion. 

---The JWST data exacerbates the problem. 

Q: Why do the scientists ignore the implications? 

---Enceladus must be young. 

Q: When, and why, did it start spewing out water recently, if Saturn is old?" 

CEH