By 
May 2nd, 2014
Enceladus
Credit: NASA/JPL/CICLOPS/Space Science Institute
Off-world Olympic events on Saturn’s sixth moon have gotten an icy look-over by a researcher at The Center for Interdisciplinary Science, University of Leicester in England.
Leicester student, David McDonagh, pondered a future scenario in which Winter Olympics organizers are forced to look beyond the Earth for a suitable location for the games.
The researcher notes that over the last century, increasing costs and political tensions highlight the need for neutral ground if the event is to continue into the future.
According to McDonagh, the viability of Enceladus as a future location for the Winter Olympic Games was based on using the large hill ski jumping event of the Sochi 2014 slope as a case study.
Air time
“Different conditions are found to significantly increase descent and air time, while the lack of a significant atmosphere could lead to interesting developments in the sport,” McDonagh postulates.
“Astro-athletes” bounding about on Enceladus would find ideal conditions, given the possible 100 meter-thick blankets of very fine snow in some regions, McDonagh reports.
In his calculations, McDonagh took into account the surface gravity of Enceladus, roughly 1.15% that of Earth, as well as the moon’s atmospheric density based on Cassini spacecraft data and computational simulations.
Friction, slope, angle of attack must be considered for off-world Olympics.
Image credit: Wikipedia (modified)
Calmer and safer
How would Olympic athletes need to adapt to compete on this distant moon?
“Aside from the need to wear space suits, differences in gravity and atmospheric density are likely to be the key factors affecting skiing events,” McDonagh explains. His research has found that events such as the ski jumping large hill event would actually be a lot “calmer and safer” than it is here on Earth.
For example, it would take 30 seconds to get to the end of the slope compared to around 5 seconds as seen at Sochi. The time taken for the initial jump as the skier takes off would nearly double on Enceladus.
McDonagh concludes: “The Winter Olympic Games can have a bright future on the brightest moon in the solar system.”
No word yet on whether McDonagh is planning a site visit to confirm his research findings.
Since Enceladus was discovered by Fredrick William Herschel in1789, surely finding the best “Herschel Hill” should be on the check-off list.
Note: You can read the full paper here:
http://www.physics.le.ac.uk/jist/index.php/JIST/article/view/61/39
Posted in Space News
