It's easy to imagine that the seafloor miles beneath
the icy surface of the Southern Ocean might be a cold, dark, inhospitable place, as devoid of life as the vacuum of space it so closely resembles — but that couldn't be further from the truth.
The cracked
icy surface of Europa.
Beneath
the icy surface of Enceladus, liquid water is heated as it percolates through the rock of the seafloor.
Cassini discovered a liquid - water ocean under
the icy surface of the moon Enceladus and, perhaps a victim of its own success, must die to prevent any chance that its warm electric generators might melt their way down into those life - friendly waters.
Evidence suggests that beneath
the icy surface of Europa, there may be subsurface oceans that could support extremophiles like M. frigidum.
«For the first time, we can really determine what these strange welts of
the icy surface of Pluto really are,» said William B. McKinnon, who led the study.
Studying creatures that live in extreme climates gives researchers insight into the sort of life that could survive below
the icy surface of Europa, illustrated above.
«For the first time, we can really determine what these strange welts of
the icy surface of Pluto really are,» said William B. McKinnon, professor of earth an planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the study.
The smooth,
icy surface of Telesto sets it apart from most other Saturnian moons, which are heavily cratered.
ONTO THE ICE This image from the Galileo spacecraft shows
the icy surface of Europa.
Under
the icy surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus, a liquid ocean launches water plumes through the cracks.
As our P - 3 flying research laboratory skimmed above
the icy surface of the Weddell Sea, I was glued to the floor.
The seemingly bleak
icy surfaces of these moons are in fact among the most active landscapes in the solar system.
Not exact matches
On May 26, NASA announced a suite
of instruments that will accompany the spacecraft they're designing to send to Europa — a moon four times smaller than Earth that scientists suspect could harbor a deep, vast, salty ocean beneath its thick,
icy surface.
Designed for wearing at work but flexible enough for a quick hike around town as well, the Santiago shoes use materials made mostly
of leather with a rubber sole that can handle slick
icy surfaces.
The rain soon turned into a hailstorm, making the track so slippery that some
of the cars couldn't even move on the
icy marbles that now covered the
surface.
All
of these molecules stick to the
surface of dust specks, accumulating
icy layers over millions
of years.
The
icy deposits appear to be patchy and thin, and it's possible that they are mixed in with the
surface layer
of soil, dust and small rocks called the regolith.
The three - day observations show that the comet shards brighten and dim as
icy patches on their
surfaces rotate into and out
of sunlight.
The presence
of sea salt on Europa's
surface suggests the ocean is interacting with its rocky seafloor — an important consideration in determining whether the
icy moon could support life.
The southern pole
of Saturn's 300 - mile - wide moon spits an average
of 56 gallons
of water a second into space via geysers in its
icy surface.
This view is a composite
of images taken in 1995 and 1998, color enhanced to show details
of the cracks and ridges that stretch across Europa's
icy surface.
They include a robotic arm to scoop samples and others to analyze the chemistry
of the Jovian moon's
icy surface (SN: 5/17/14, p. 20).
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.
Future wet suits with
surface textures like the thick fur
of otters that trap insulating air layers could keep tomorrow's divers warmer in
icy waters.
In 2005, NASA's Cassini spacecraft spied jets
of water ice and vapor erupting into space from fissures on Enceladus, evidence
of a salty ocean beneath the saturnian moon's placid
icy surface.
Around the south pole
of Enceladus — a 500 - kilometer - wide runt
of a moon many expected to be rather inert and uninteresting — the orbiter saw tantalizing signs
of activity — plumes
of water vapor venting into space from fissures in the
icy surface.
It has been known for quite some time that red pigmented snow algae blooming on
icy surfaces darken the
surface which in turn leads to less albedo and a higher uptake
of heat.
The tiny moon Enceladus, which has a liquid sea below its
icy surface and spews geysers
of water into space, set behind Saturn as Cassini watched:
I arrive during the last week
of field tests for the robotic explorer VALKYRIE, which could one day dive into the ocean thought to hide beneath the
surface of Jupiter's
icy moon Europa, looking for signs
of life.
Large depressions mar the
surface of each, and both feature
icy volcanoes possibly powered by liquid beneath the
surface.
Philae's job is to sample the pristine
icy surface, looking for clues to the origins
of Earth's oceans and life itself.
Eventually, sometime about 2.5 billion years ago, the weight
of the sediments caused the lake's
icy ceiling to collapse, sending immense amounts
of water to the
surface, the researchers propose online this month in Icarus.
Nobody had ever thought
of this roughly 300 - mile - wide
icy satellite as anything special — until the Cassini spacecraft witnessed geysers
of water vapor blowing out from its
surface.
The latest data from the Cassini - Huygens mission, including a mosaic image
of the
surface, show an odd bright red spot, an
icy volcano, and a dark feature that may be a lake.
And since its
surface is
icy and it has a penchant for spewing water and ammonia into space, researchers have concluded it probably has a crust
of ice, a watery mantle and a core
of solid rock.
«I try to imagine how it would be to stand on the
surface of this
icy object — small enough that a fast sports car could reach escape velocity and drive off into space — and stare up at a 20 - kilometre wide ring system 1000 times closer than the Moon.»
Last year, scientists predicted that some
of the material spewed out into space by the
icy geysers at Enceladus's south pole would slowly fall down to certain areas on the
surface.
Schimdt has found evidence that warm ocean currents and convective forces beneath Europa's frozen shell can cause large blocks
of ice to overturn and melt, bringing vast pockets
of water, sometimes holding as much liquid as all
of the Great Lakes combined, to within several kilometers
of the moon's
icy surface.
Scientists analyzing the cracks and ridges on Europa's
surface find that its
icy skin is also slowly recycled through a process similar to continental subduction on Earth, with one
icy plate slipping and buckling under the edge
of another.
Here is what scientists think is happening: when Ceres swings through the part
of its orbit that is closer to the sun, a portion
of its
icy surface becomes warm enough to cause water vapor to escape in plumes at a rate
of about 6 kilograms (13 pounds) per second.
«If you find an ocean beneath the
surface of one moon, perhaps the same is true
of other
icy objects in space,» says Jesper Lindkvist.
And how exactly do the grains
of rock get to the
surface of the
icy moon?
«This is the first time water vapor has been unequivocally detected on Ceres or any other object in the asteroid belt and provides proof that Ceres has an
icy surface and an atmosphere,» said Michael Küppers
of ESA in Spain, lead author
of a paper in the journal Nature.
Its
icy surface was as white and bright as fresh snow, and whereas the other airless moons were heavily pocked with craters, Enceladus was mantled in places with extensive plains
of smooth, uncratered terrain, a clear sign
of past internally driven geologic activity.
Like a cosmic lava lamp, a large section
of Pluto's
icy surface is renewed by a process called convection that replace older ices with fresher material.
It allows scientists to measure a variety
of ice behaviors at conditions that are applicable to both terrestrial glaciers and
icy moon
surfaces.
«We'd like to see if frictional heating on faults
of icy moons can explain the geysers
of liquid water observed on their
surfaces,» McCarthy said.
Mission scientists used state -
of - the - art computer simulations to show that the
surface of Sputnik Planum is covered with
icy, churning, convective «cells» 10 - 30 miles across, and less than a million years old.
Ice shells
of icy satellites can have warm interiors — approximately 0 degrees C — but
surface temperatures as low as -200 degrees C -LRB--330 F), like on Saturn's moon Enceladus, though the team's apparatus does not reach that extremely low temperature.