Sentences with phrase «other icy moons»

Not exact matches

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).

Whereas Pluto's putative ocean could in principle support life, it is probably locked beneath perhaps 200 kilometers of ice and very far from Earth, making it a much less appealing target for astrobiological studies than other, closer subsurface oceans known to exist in the solar system, such as those within the icy moons circling Jupiter and Saturn.

The smooth, icy surface of Telesto sets it apart from most other Saturnian moons, which are heavily cratered.

«We also see fractures on other solar system bodies, such as Jupiter's icy moon Europa,» Quick said.

«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.

The very existence of these hardy organisms hints that life might be able to eke out an existence in the cold, dry climate of Mars, the icy, acidic conditions of Jupiter's moon Europa, or in countless other spots beyond our solar system.

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.

Scientists are interested in understanding early life on Earth because if we ever hope to find life on other worlds - especially icy worlds with subsurface oceans such as Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's Enceladus - we need to know what chemical signatures to look for.

Most likely, scientists have proposed, the tidal flexing induced in a moon's icy surface causes cracks in polar regions to open widest while the satellite is farthest from its parent planet but clamp shut at other times.

Scientists are interested in understanding early life on Earth because if we ever hope to find life on other worlds — especially icy worlds with subsurface oceans such as Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's Enceladus — we need to know what chemical signatures to look for.

Based on these facts, and other indicators, researchers recently proposed that the icy moons formed from ring particles and then moved outward, away from the planet, merging with other moons on the way.

Scientists were already fairly confident in the ocean's existence, based on the moon's smooth icy surface — evidence of past resurfacing by the ocean — and other observations by the Galileo spacecraft, which made a handful of flybys in the 1990s.

Saturn's much smaller moon, Enceladus, features a network of icy volcanoes spewing ammonia, formaldehyde, and other organic molecules.

Two veteran NASA missions are providing new details about icy, ocean - bearing moons of Jupiter and Saturn, further heightening the scientific interest of these and other «ocean worlds» in our solar system and beyond.

For example, the spacecraft spotted geysers of water vapor and other material blasting from the south pole of the icy moon Enceladus.

When planetary scientists started studying the photographs and data from Voyager and the subsequent Galileo mission that studied the Jovian system during the 1990s and early 2000s, they confirmed this notion: these ridges, or lineae, are fructures, or cracks, on Europa's icy surface, caused be the intense tidal forces of the massive, nearby Jupiter and the orbital resonances with the other nearby moons.

There are three other missions as part of this initiative, including JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer, an L - class mission intended for a 2022 launch), Solar Orbiter (M1, intended for a 2017 launch), and Euclid (M2, intended for a 2020 launch).

Laboratory experiments on Earth can now simulate the conditions under which life might emerge on Saturn's moon Enceladus, as well as other icy alien worlds, according to new research published in journal Astrobiology.

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.

The other moons orbit this pair: icy shards called Styx, Nix, Kerberos, and Hydra.

Icy moons are made mostly of ice, which can be frozen water, or ice made of other materials.

Citing Mars sample return, an upcoming mission to Jupiter's ocean - harboring moon Europa and possible future probes that could visit other icy satellites, Maynard engaged the audience of scientists with the stated intent of changing how they think about the process.

The water - rich moon is «one of the few places beyond Earth where we can watch geology happen in real time, giving us a primer for understanding other, less active, icy worlds,» John Spencer, a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., who was not involved in the study, wrote in a commentary.

As NASA explains on its website, among other discoveries, Cassini revealed the icy jets that shoot from Saturn's minuscule moon Enceladus, which showed evidence of an underground ocean with hydrothermal activity within it.

The Galileo mission that studied the Jovian system during the 1990s and early 2000s confirmed the scientists» speculations that these ridges were fractures, or cracks, on Europa's icy surface, caused be the intense tidal forces of the massive, nearby Jupiter and the orbital resonances with the other nearby moons of the Jovian system.