Tag: interior

Europa Chemistry

ryanLeave a comment
I always get giddy when talking about Europa, as many astronomers do.  It’s one of the most fascinating places in our solar system when it comes to the search for life.  It has lots of water, likely contained in a subsurface ocean.  It’s heated though a gravitational tug of war with Jupiter and the other Galilean moons.  And, as of recently, it has a chemical production system that matches Earth’s. I wonder what goes on beneath the thick ice of Europa.  Is there an ecosystem filled with alien life down there?  Life in Earth’s oceans feels very alien, but creatures from...

Enceladus’ Global Subsurface Ocean Confirmed

ryanLeave a comment
For years there has been talk of a subsurface ocean present within Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus.  Many have simply assumed it to be fact, but the reality is, something so complex on a world so far away is very difficult to prove conclusively.  But now, using data from over a decade of observations by the Cassini spacecraft, mission scientists have shown conclusively that Enceladus must have a global ocean beneath a surface of ice. Previous data analysis suggested that there was a lens-shaped liquid ocean beneath the south polar region of the planet, giving a source for the observed plumes...