Monday, March 23, 2009

What am I made of?


Cheese?
Nope... sorry!

I am a 'differentiated body' composed of a distinct crust, mantle and core! My structure is believe to have resulted from the fraction crystallization of magma ocean shortly after my formation around 4.4 billion years ago!

My crust, in terms of elements is composed primarily of oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, calcium, and aluminum and is estimated to be about 50 km thick.

I have the density of 3346.4 kg/m cubed, making me the second densest moon in the Solar system, after my dear 'moon' friend Io.

My core is small, with a radius of only about 350km or less. This is therefore only 20% of me! As you can see, I am very different from other terrestrial bodies as their composition of core is around 50% of their make up.

Analysis of my time-variable rotation indicate that my core is at least partly molten.