«If those plumes are connected with
the subsurface water ocean we are confident exists under Europa's crust, then this means that future investigations can directly investigate the chemical makeup of Europa's potentially habitable environment without drilling through layers of ice.
Not exact matches
An important discovery was that of
water clusters and charged dust particles in plumes at Enceladus, helping us to understand that it has a
subsurface ocean.
The
subsurface ocean of Europa contains more than twice as much
water as Earth's
oceans.
Although no one can say for certain whether the
subsurface ocean supplies the
water that has been seen spraying out of the tiger stripes on Enceladus's surface, the scientists say that it is possible.
Because Charon's modern - day surface is mostly
water ice, it makes sense that the 1212 - km - diameter moon once had a
subsurface ocean kept liquid by heat from the radioactive decay of elements in its core, as well as by the heat generated from collisions of smaller bits when the moon first accumulated.
Water vapor erupting from this Jovian moon could offer new pathways for exploring its
subsurface ocean
The amount of rocking of the magnetic field, caused by its interaction with Jupiter's own immense magnetosphere, provides evidence that the moon has a
subsurface ocean of saline
water.
This
water should all have seeped up from the
subsurface rivers below, rather than washing in from the
ocean above.
Scientists say Charon could have been warm enough to cause the
water ice to melt deep down, creating a
subsurface ocean.
New NOAA - led research maps the distribution of aragonite saturation state in both surface and
subsurface waters of the global
ocean and provides further evidence that
ocean acidification is happening on a global scale.
Astronomers know very little for certain about Ceres, but based on indirect evidence, they speculate that it is a world of clay and ice, and possibly even has a
subsurface ocean of liquid
water, preserved from the very creation of the solar system.
With heat,
water and nutrients,
subsurface Europa could resemble the deep - sea
ocean vents on Earth that support vast ecosystems.
The
water will migrate downward through slushy ice to the
subsurface ocean within a few tens of thousands of years, researchers reported today at the European Planetary Science Congress in Madrid.
A planet with the same fraction of
water as Earth could keep a
subsurface ocean liquid if it was 3.5 times Earth's mass.
Characterizing the ice shell and any
subsurface water, and the nature of surface - ice -
ocean exchange
Scientists comparing radar images from the Cassini spacecraft with geophysical models say that the three ridges in this image, released yesterday, were created when Titan's gradual cooling after its formation caused partial freezing of the moon's
subsurface ocean of
water and ammonia.
Data gathered by the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that plumes of
water vapor hundreds of kilometers tall, possibly originating in a
subsurface ocean, spew from the moon's south pole.
There's geological evidence for occasional
water upwelling from Europa's
subsurface ocean — a process similar to the upwelling of magma from Earth's mantle.
Images from the Galileo spacecraft, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003, hinted that Europa has a relatively thin crust in which fissures sometimes open up and let
water escape from a
subsurface ocean.
Some scientists believe the dwarf planet harbored a
subsurface ocean in the past and liquid
water may still be lurking under its icy mantle.
The moon's south pole has strange, warm fractures, and plumes of liquid
water from a
subsurface ocean many believed was impossible in such a small, cold world.
Astronomers can learn how to study the plumes of
subsurface ocean water spewing from icy moons like Saturn's Enceladus from an unlikely source: Space toilets.
Silica found in the jets can be produced only in
water close to boiling point, indicating that hydrothermal vents are also present in the
subsurface ocean — making the icy moon a hot target in the search for life.
Enceladus's plumes are thought to originate in
water escaping from a
subsurface ocean through cracks in the moon's icy surface.
Pluto is thought to possess a
subsurface ocean, which is not so much a sign of
water as it is a tremendous clue that other dwarf planets in deep space also may contain similarly exotic
oceans, naturally leading to the question of life, said one co-investigator with NASA's New Horizon mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.
Conditions in its
subsurface global
water ocean are thought to be similar to those deep in Earth's
oceans, where a wide variety of life thrives.
Such areas on the surface would provide another ideal way to learn more about Europa's
subsurface water, if indeed there is a connection between them and the
ocean.
With the help of the European Huygens lander, it explored the stunningly dynamic atmosphere of Titan, discovering vast lakes of liquid methane and uncovering a vast
subsurface ocean of liquid
water.
The search for this
subsurface ocean warmed up after scientists discovered plumes of mineral - rich
water vapor squirting out of cracks near the south pole.
The mission objectives are to characterize the ice shell and any
subsurface water, understand the habitability of Europa's
ocean, and to understand the formation of surface features.
To go to Enceladus, she added, any lander would need to be very clean as liquid
water is in contact with the moon's icy surface, so contamination of the
subsurface ocean would be a very real possibility.
Closer investigation of these plumes, originating from geysers blasting from polar fissures in Enceladus» icy crust, revealed this
water was coming from a warm
subsurface salty
ocean and the
water was laced with hydrocarbons and ammonia, or «many of the ingredients that life would need if it were to start in an environment like that,» Soderblom tells HowStuffWorks.
The frigid satellite has long been thought of as candidate for possible microbial life due to its vast
subsurface ocean of
water.
Taking into account the dwarf planet's size and interior heat flow, which is around two percent that of Earth's, the team discovered that the temperatures and pressures at play below Sputnik Planitia could give rise to a viscous, slushy
subsurface ocean of
water ice.
If this is the case, we might also find Europan planets with an abundance of
subsurface oxygenated
water, which could bubble out to form habitable caves in the ice above a cold
ocean.
This artist's impression of the interior of Saturn's moon Enceladus shows that interactions between hot
water and rock occur at the floor of the
subsurface ocean — the type of environment that might be friendly to life, scientists say.
u Many Mars researchers cling to the belief that Mars once had
oceans or considerable
subsurface water.
Heat can change
ocean dynamics and eventually will increase glacial melting, which is mainly responding to
subsurface water rather than air warming.
Highly cited Holland et al 2008 (Acceleration of Jakobshavn Isbræ triggered by warm
subsurface ocean waters) uses 20 year grided dataset of subsurf
ocean T from commercial fishing industry.
The survival of the Antarctic ice shelves including these is dependent on the temperature and salinity of the
subsurface ocean water.
For hurricanes, then, you'd want to ask what the sea surface temperature,
subsurface ocean heat content, and atmospheric
water vapor content would have been if, say, fossil fuel use had been eliminated 100 years ago, and atmospheric CO2 remained at about 300 ppm.
But again, I have to ask a question that you have not answered: How does the heat trapped by CO2 at the surface skin warm the
subsurface ocean waters since it is widely acknowledged that the infrared heat from CO2 can't penetrate into the
ocean itself?
This includes maintaining Argo, the main system for monitoring
ocean heat content, and the development of Deep Argo to monitor the lower half of the
ocean; the use of ship - based
subsurface ocean temperature monitoring programs; advancements in robotic technologies such as autonomous underwater vehicles to monitor
waters adjacent to land (like islands or coastal regions); and further development of real - or near - real - time deep
ocean remote sensing methods.
The upper 3 meters of the world's
oceans hold more heat than the entire atmosphere, so continual ventilation of just 10 meters of warmer
subsurface water will affect the global average for decades.
You missed the
subsurface waters (
Ocean Heat Content) of the tropical Pacific in your heat pump description.
«We thought Enceladus was just boring and cold until the Cassini mission discovered a liquid
water subsurface ocean,» said Cable.
Warming of surface
ocean waters is well known, but how the
subsurface waters are changing is less clear.
In the tropical Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian
Ocean, a decline in oxygen content in the
subsurface waters has been confirmed with observations (Stramma et al., 2010).
«The
subsurface ocean steric [
water - heating] expansion is found to contribute rates of 0.78, 0.40, 0.36, 0.07, 0.06, and 0.05 mm / yr from 1996 — 2006 between 300 — 700 m, 700 — 1000 m, 1000 — 2000 m, 2000 — 3000 m, 3000 — 4000 m, and 4000 — 6000 m, respectively.»
That's primarily because «The Blob» itself is thought to largely be a side - effect of the multi-year persistence of the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge, which suppressed the North Pacific storm track and prevented the vertical mixing of colder
subsurface ocean waters toward the surface.