Let's send a private mission to Europa, expert says

Jupiter's icy moon Europa puzzles astrobiologists and sparks the imagination of extraterrestrial life seekers. It is believed that the moon has a subsurface ocean of liquid water, where life could possibly be similar to microbial ...

Cassini finds hints of activity at Saturn moon Dione

(Phys.org) —From a distance, most of the Saturnian moon Dione resembles a bland cueball. Thanks to close-up images of a 500-mile-long (800-kilometer-long) mountain on the moon from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, scientists ...

Enceladus' jets reach all the way to its sea

Thanks to the Cassini mission we've known about the jets of icy brine spraying from the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus for about 8 years now, but this week it was revealed at the 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference ...

Liquid water near Europa's surface a rarity

(Phys.org)—Europa, the enigmatic moon of Jupiter, is believed to be home to a subsurface ocean of liquid water. However, future missions to explore Europa's ocean may need to dig deep. Research suggests that water does ...

Triton: A subsurface ocean?

Neptune's largest moon Triton is most likely a captured Kuiper Belt Object. The capture of icy Triton and the subsequent taming of its orbit likely led to the formation of a subsurface ocean through tidal heating. New research ...

Changing El Nino could reshape Pacific Ocean biology

Over the past few decades, the scientific understanding of El Nino has grown increasingly complex. Traditionally viewed as a periodic warming focused largely in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, El Nino is associated ...

La Nina risks increase, to detriment of E. Africa: UN

There is a 50 percent chance the climatic condition known as La Nina -- which is associated with droughts in East Africa -- will return this year, the UN weather agency said Thursday.

Warming ocean layers will undermine polar ice sheets

Warming of the ocean's subsurface layers will melt underwater portions of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets faster than previously thought, according to new University of Arizona-led research. Such melting would increase ...

Is titan hiding an ocean?

Saturn's moon Titan just keeps throwing surprises at us. A multi-layered atmosphere thicker than our own? Check. A hydrologic cycle that relies on methane as the operating liquid? Check. Rivers, streams and lakes filled with ...

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