Sentences with phrase «icy crust»

With the use of its Cassini spacecraft and the Deep Space Orbiting Network, NASA has potentially discovered evidence for the presence of an ocean of liquid water locked away beneath the thick, icy crust of Saturn's moon, Enceladus.

Titan's icy crust sits atop a deep ocean of liquid water that probably acts much like Earth's upper mantle — the layer of hot, high - pressure rock below the crust that can slowly flow and deform over time.

The mission — to a body whose icy crust covers a watery ocean that could, perhaps, support life — has historically won only lukewarm support from the White House but received much stronger backing from Congress, which set aside $ 100 million for the plan in 2015.

The team believes a shallow global ocean, perhaps only a mile deep, lies between Enceladus» rocky core and its 30 - mile - thick icy crust.

Representation of the interior of Enceladus with icy crust, ocean and solid core.

The agency has no official plans for a mission to the Jovian moon, whose icy crust covers a watery ocean in which life could theoretically exist.

The lion's share of these coordinated and collaborative ventures will focus on orbiting — and possibly landing on — Europa, a scientifically intriguing world where evidence of a watery ocean beneath the moon's icy crust points to a possible abode for extraterrestrial life.

As a result, Titan contracted and the overlying icy crust sagged and wrinkled up like a giant prune.

Researchers have clear visual evidence of Europa's icy crust expanding.

This, scientists believe, is probably because MK2 is too small, and its gravity too weak, to hold on to its reflective icy crust, which sublimates — changing from solid to gas — under sunlight.

so with the gravitational action and the frozen icy crust, Europa shoots geysers of water out into space all the time.

Jim Green: The Snowball Earth era reminds me of several objects in the Solar System now that we're trying to study, one of which is Europa, [which has] got this fabulous icy crust over the whole moon and underneath it perhaps as much as twice the volume of water than exists here on Earth.

It also would be far easier to get a water sample from Enceladus, which has plumes of water vapor, ice and particles shooting more than 300 miles off its surface, than from other moons, such as Jupiter's Europa, where a massive ocean is believed to be buried beneath a thick icy crust.

9 Most likely spots for alien life in our solar system: underground refuges on Mars, hot spots on Saturn's moon Enceladus (whose south pole is dotted with geysers), and Jupiter's moons Europa and Callisto (whose icy crusts may conceal vast, underlying oceans of water).

Researchers used the robot to discover six new moons and mysterious «propeller objects» in Saturn's rings, documented a giant hexagon swirling atop the planet's north pole, photographed hydrocarbon lakes on Titan (Saturn's largest moon), and found a vast ocean of salty water — which may harbor alien life — below the icy crust of the moon Enceladus.

An icy crust is forming on my cheeks and nosedespite the protection of a face mask, and my feet have begun to burn with thesharp intensity of an open wound — frostbite, no doubt about that, but there isnothing I can do about it until we camp.

The watery depths of Jupiter's moon Europa might interact with its icy crust (as illustrated above), making the existence (and detection) of life there more likely.

This week brings a video reconstructed from images of the Philae lander's approach to a comet, and a major new analysis of data from the Cassini mission that bolsters the case for a global, not just local, ocean beneath the icy crust of Enceladus

They found that Enceladus has a rocky core and an icy crust.

Most astronomers thought that the plumes force their way out through cracks in an icy crust sitting over a sea of liquid water.

In this case, though, the heat produced not volcanoes but a warm ocean sloshing beneath Europa's icy crust.

Earlier this year, Galileo scientists confirmed an induced magnetic field around Europa, indicating that a salty ocean flows beneath its icy crust (ScienceNOW, 11 January).

The stress of such an impact could have opened up conduits in the icy crust, he says.

Cassini revealed Enceladus, once thought small, cold, and dead, to have more than 100 plumes of hydrogen - rich liquid water erupting from cracks in its icy crust, possible evidence of hydrothermal vents in its buried sea — a habitat similar to Earth.

A subsurface sea of water might hide beneath the icy crust of Dione, one of Saturn's moons, researchers report online October 9 in Geophysical Research Letters.

Jupiter's enigmatic moon Europa has long been thought to contain a huge ocean beneath its icy crust, but what is in that ocean and does it ever come to the surface?

Imaging of the surface may reveal whether there is indeed an ocean beneath an icy crust.

A strong sun will melt surface snow, which then refreezes at night into an icy crust, off of which the next layer of snow can easily slip.

Certain tidally stressed moons in the outer solar system, such as Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, harbor oceans of liquid water beneath their icy crusts.

It's currently impossible to probe beneath the icy crust of a planet like Pluto, but if Ceres does have an exposed frozen (once subsurface) ocean, that gives planetary scientists a useful proxy.

Its next phase will be the Europa Clipper mission, a Jupiter orbiter launching in the 2020s to study the watery depths beneath the Jovian moon's icy crust.

This ball has a convecting mantle (yellow) and an icy crust (blue).

The spacecraft also would have dropped a lander onto Wirtanen for the first hands - on probe of a comet's icy crust.

An icy crust atop a muddy mix of water - ice «sand» and liquid methane would match the readings nicely.

Although it lacks volcanoes or large mountains, it may have a salty ocean six miles deep beneath its icy crust.

A deep ocean under the icy crust of Ganymede opens up further exciting possibilities for life beyond Earth.»

That position suggests that the basin has what's called a positive mass anomaly — it has more mass than average for Pluto's icy crust.

And last year, astronomers reported strong evidence that the Saturn moon Enceladus likely harbors a huge and salty ocean beneath its icy crust.

The weather then grew colder, and the melt layer formed an icy crust.

And the latest news is that the king of the Kuiper belt, the king of the third zone, Pluto, may even sport an ocean under its icy crust!

Hydrothermal vents may have existed once on Mars and may still exist in an ocean under Europa's icy crust, some scientists say, making them prime targets in the search for extraterrestrial life.

That includes Europa, which is thought to harbour a liquid ocean beneath its icy crust.

Combined with other discoveries of recent volcanic activity on Mars, those results strengthen the case that Mars could have warm, wet havens hidden beneath an icy crust.

Martian colonies could pack up the spaceship and relocate to Jupiter's moon Europa, where scientists believe a large ocean of liquid water hides beneath an icy crust.

Researchers think the moon's icy crust may be just a few kilometres thick — perhaps thin enough to crack open under tidal stresses and allow life in the oceans below to flourish by absorbing the Sun's energy.

The discovery strengthens the case that the moon has a liquid ocean beneath its icy crust, and may even offer a way to taste its seas and search for signs of life.

Lately the mission has also gained a tantalizing target: plumes of water vapor that seem to erupt through the moon's icy crust, presumably sweeping any organic molecules into space, where they might be detectable.

In both, tides caused by Europa's eccentric orbit around Jupiter create internal heat that melts the base of the icy crust.

Enceladus data point to a liquid ocean under the icy crust and hydrothermal vents at the south pole.

Europa is already thought to harbour a liquid ocean beneath its icy crust, making the moon one of the main targets in the search for habitable worlds away from Earth.