Ithaca Chasma Totally Explained

Everything about Ithaca Chasma totally explained

Ithaca Chasma is a valley on Saturn's moon Tethys. It is 100 km wide, 3 to 5 km deep and 2,000 km long, running approximately three-fourths of the way around Tethys' circumference. It is named after the island of Ithaca, in Greece.
   It is thought that Ithaca Chasma formed as Tethys' internal liquid water solidified, causing the moon to expand and cracking its surface to accommodate the extra volume within. Earlier craters made before Tethys solidified were probably all erased by geological activity before then.
   Tethys' subsurface ocean may have resulted from a 2:3 orbital resonance between Dione and Tethys early in the solar system's history. The resonance would have led to orbital eccentricity and tidal heating that may have warmed Tethys' interior enough to form the ocean. Subsequent freezing of the ocean after the moons escaped from the resonance may have generated the extensional stresses that created Ithaca Chasma.
   An alternative theory is that it was formed at the same time as the large crater Odysseus which is on the opposite side of the moon. When the impact that created Odysseus occurred, the shockwave may have traveled through Tethys and fractured the icy, brittle surface on the other side.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Ithaca Chasma'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://ithaca_chasma.totallyexplained.com">Ithaca Chasma Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.