Saturday, April 11, 2015

THE 6TH OF THE 6TH

Inspired by Titan, the song of symphonic death metal band Septicflesh, by Greek mythology, and by astronomy, I decided to try to write lyrics about another Saturn's moon:

sentenced by the gods
for thy fight
for the rebellion of thy
and thy fellows

fallen giant
buried underneath by goddess of wisdom
thou ocean of eternal night
with briny depths

with thy creatures
hidden in misty caverns
and around hot springs
of thy wounds

desperate and alone

breath of thy spiracles
soaring from thy stripes
is shaking the ground

geysers of steam
shepherds of the ring
are spreading cold

covering the sphere
witnesses of thy fury

covering the sphere
refusing the light

thy rage
fueled by the lord of time
swelling under the surface

fallen giant
the 6th of the 6th
imprisoned, choking
and waiting...


Enceladus - mythological giant, the offspring of Gaia, and Uranus and traditional opponent of Athena during the war between the Giants and the gods.
Athena hurled the island of Sicily at him, and he was said to be the cause of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions of Mount Etna (his breath and rolling over from side to side beneath the mountain).

The 6th moon of the 6th planet of our solar system, Saturn, was named after this giant.
It is basically an ice ball with a possible liquid water ocean (with depth about 10 kilometers - briny depths) at the south pole, with approximately the same volume as Lake Superior in North America, covered by icy crust (ocean of eternal night). This ocean could be a potentially habitable environment for microbial extraterrestrial life (creatures), which can be maybe even hidden in 'misty caverns' (see 'Misty caverns' on Enceladus moon), possible places near the surface, which could be sources of cold geysers. The existence of the ocean and the geysers is maintained by an internal source of heat (hot springs), consisting partially of tidal effect (rage fueled by the lord of time - Saturn).
Spiracles of the geysers (shaking the ground), powered by an internal source of heat (witnesses of Enceladus' fury) are spreading water vapor and ice (spreading cold) into space. Fresh ice is covering the sphere and causing its high albedo (refusing the light), and part of the vapor is escaping the moon's gravitational field and making up Saturn's E ring (geysers, shepherds of the ring).
This cryovolcanic activity is situated in the south pole, a region called tiger stripes (breath soaring from thy stripes).

Seems that there is really imprisoned, chocking 'giant', buried under the moon's surface, waiting with his secrets in the subsurface ocean...


Enceladus with visible cryovolcanic activity together with E ring (Credit: astronomy.org)

This picture illustrates a possible subsurface ocean of the moon (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

False-color mosaic of Enceladus taken by the Cassini–Huygens probe showing south polar region with tiger stripes (Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

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