Samarkand Sulci

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Samarkand Sulci

Samarkand Sulci is a region of grooved terrain on the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus

Enceladus (moon)

'Enceladus' , is the sixth-largest Moons of Saturn of Saturn . It was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel. Until the two Voyager program spacecraft passed near it in the early 1980s, very little was known about this small moon besides the identification of water ice on its surface....
. The feature is centered at 30.5° North Latitude

Latitude

Latitude, usually denoted symbolically by the Greek letter phi gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the equator. Lines of Latitude are the horizontal lines shown running east-to-west on maps ....
, 326.8° West Longitude

Longitude

Longitude , symbolized by the Greek character lambda , is the geographic coordinate most commonly used in cartography and global navigation for east-west measurement....
and is approximately 383 kilometers long. Samarkand Sulci consists of three parts. The southern and eastern extensions bound Sarandib Planitia

Sarandib Planitia

Sarandib Planitia is a region of relatively un-cratered terrain on Saturn 's moon Enceladus . It is located at 4.4? North Latitude, 298.0? West Longitude and is approximately 200 km across....
on its western and northern sides, respectively. The northern portions extends into a region of cratered terrain.

Using Voyager 2
Voyager 2

The spacecraft is an Unmanned space mission interplanetary space probe launched on August 20, 1977. Identical in form to its sister Voyager program craft Voyager 1, Voyager 2 followed a slower trajectory that allowed it to be kept in the ecliptic so that it could be sent to Uranus and Neptune by means of gravity assist during...
images, Kargel and Pozio (1996) found that the northern and southern/eastern extensions of this feature are likely distinct features with different origins and ages.

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Encyclopedia

Samarkand Sulci is a region of grooved terrain on the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus

Enceladus (moon)

Latitude

Longitude

Sarandib Planitia

Fold (geology)

The term fold is used in geology when one or a stack of originally flat and planar surfaces, such as sedimentary Stratum, are bent or curved as a result of plastic deformation....
, similar to North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
's Appalachian Mountains

Appalachian Mountains

The Appalachian Mountains or , often called the Appalachians, are a vast mountain range in eastern North America. Definitions vary on the precise boundaries of the Appalachians....
. The northern portion of Samarkand Sulci was found to consist of linear fracture

Fracture

A fracture is the separation of an object or material into two, or more, pieces under the action of stress .The word fracture is often applied to bones of living creatures, or to crystals or crystalline materials, such as gemstones or metal....
s, suggesting that rather than a compressional

Physical compression

Physical compression is the result of the subjection of a material to compressive stress, resulting in reduction of volume. The opposite of compression is tension ....
fold belt, the northern part of Samarkand Sulci may in fact be an extensional rift

Rift

In geology, a rift is a place where the Earth's Crust and lithosphere are being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics.Typical rift features are a central linear downdropped geologic fault segment, called a graben, with parallel normal faulting and rift-flank uplifts on either side forming a rift valley, where the rift r...
. Based on analysis of crater counts in both areas of Samarkand Sulci, Kargel and Pozio (1996) suggested that the rift formed before the ridges.

Recent images by the Cassini spacecraft show portions of Samarkand Sulci at much higher resolution than in the Voyager 2 images. Numerous parallel ridges are resolved in the southern and eastern extensions of the feature, though some ridges appear chevron shaped. Just as Kargel and Pozio (1996) found parts of this feature lying within topographic lows, sharp scarps bound the ridge belts in several regions. On the far eastern tip of Samarkand Sulci, these scarps begin to converge as the ridge belts disappear, forming narrow canyons. Northern Samarkand Sulci was also observed. This region appears unconsolidated with several craters, like Ahmad

Ahmad (crater)

Ahmad is a Impact crater in the northern hemisphere of Saturn 's moon Enceladus . Ahmad was first discovered in Voyager 2 images but was seen at much higher resolution, though near the Terminator , by Cassini-Huygens Mission....
and Peri-Banu

Peri-Banu (crater)

Peri-Banu is a Impact crater in the northern hemisphere of Saturn 's moon Enceladus . Peri-Banu was first discovered in Voyager 2 images but was seen at much higher resolution, though near the Terminator , by Cassini-Huygens Mission....
, appearing to be cross-cut or even flooded by this portion of Samarkand Sulci.

Near the southern end of Samarkand Sulci, curious dark patches, 500-750 m across were observed lying along ridge crests. It is possible these spots ma ybe collapse pits.

Samarkand Sulci is named after the country ruled over by Shah Zaman, brother of Shahryar, in Arabian Nights

The Book of One Thousand and One Nights

One Thousand and One Nights , is a collection of folk tales and other stories. The original concept is most likely derived from a pre-Islamic Persian prototype that probably relied partly on India elements, but the work as we have it was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators and scholars across the Middle East an...
.