"Geysers" Elsewhere in The Solar System
There are several bodies elsewhere in the Solar System where jet-like eruptions, often termed "geysers" and "cryogeysers", have been observed or are believed to occur. Unlike geysers on Earth, these represent eruptions of gas, together with entrained dust or ice particles, without liquid.
Geyser-like plumes of water vapor, together with ice particles and smaller amounts of other components (such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen, ammonia, hydrocarbons and silicates), have been observed erupting from vents associated with the "tiger stripes" in the south polar region of Saturn's moon Enceladus by the Cassini orbiter. The mechanism by which the plumes are generated remains uncertain, but they are believed to be powered at least in part by tidal heating resulting from orbital eccentricity due to a 2:1 mean motion orbital resonance with the moon Dione. These jets are believed to be the source of Saturn's E Ring.
One of the great surprises of the Voyager 2 flyby of Neptune in 1989 was the discovery of geyser-like eruptions on its moon, Triton. Astronomers noticed dark plumes rising to some 8 km above the surface, and depositing material up to 150 km downwind. These plumes represent invisible jets of gaseous nitrogen, together with dust. All the geysers observed were located close to Triton's subsolar point, indicating that solar heating drives the eruptions. It is thought that the surface of Triton probably consists of a semi-transparent layer of frozen nitrogen overlying a darker substrate, which creates a kind of "solid greenhouse effect", heating and vaporizing nitrogen below the ice surface it until the pressure breaks the surface at the start of an eruption. Voyager's images of Triton's southern hemisphere show many streaks of dark material laid down by geyser activity.
Similar solar heating-driven jets of gaseous carbon dioxide are believed to erupt from the south polar cap of Mars each spring. While these eruptions have not yet been directly observed, they leave evidence in the form of dark spots and lighter fans atop the dry ice, representing sand and dust carried aloft by the eruptions, and a spider-like pattern of grooves created below the ice by the out-rushing gas.
Read more about this topic: Geyser
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