<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article does not cite any sources . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (February 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article does not cite any sources . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (February 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> Internal heat is the heat source from the interior of celestial objects, such as stars, brown dwarfs, planets, moons, dwarf planets, and (in the early history of the Solar System) even asteroids such as Vesta, resulting from contraction caused by gravity (the Kelvin--Helmholtz mechanism), nuclear fusion, tidal heating, core solidification (heat of fusion released as molten core material solidifies), and radioactive decay . The amount of internal heating depends on mass; the more massive the object, the more internal heat it has; also, for a given density, the more massive the object, the greater the ratio of mass to surface area, and thus the greater the retention of internal heat . The internal heating keeps celestial objects warm and active . </P> <P> In the early history of the Solar System, radioactive isotopes having a half - life on the order of a few million years (such as aluminium - 26 and iron - 60) were sufficiently abundant to produce enough heat to cause internal melting of some moons and even some asteroids, such as Vesta noted above . After these radioactive isotopes had decayed to insignificant levels, the heat generated by longer - lived radioactive isotopes (such as potassium - 40, thorium - 232, and uranium - 235 and uranium - 238) was insufficient to keep these bodies molten unless they had an alternative source of internal heating, such as tidal heating . Thus, Earth's Moon, which has no alternative source of internal heating is now geologically dead, whereas a moon as small as Enceladus that has sufficient tidal heating (or at least had it recently) and some remaining radioactive heating, is able to maintain an active and directly detectable cryovolcanism . </P>

Why do small planets lose internal heat faster than large planets