As NASA missions explore
our solar system and search for new worlds, they are finding water in
surprising places. Water is but one piece of our search for habitable planets
and life beyond Earth, yet it links many seemingly unrelated worlds in
surprising ways.
Perhaps the most surprising water worlds are the five icy moons of Jupiter
and Saturn that show strong evidence of oceans beneath their surfaces: Ganymede,
Europa and Callisto at Jupiter, and Enceladus and Titan at Saturn. Scientists
using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope recently provided powerful
evidence that Ganymede has a saltwater, sub-surface ocean, likely sandwiched
between two layers of ice.
In this artist’s concept, the moon Ganymede orbits the giant planet Jupiter.
The Hubble Space Telescope observed aurora on the moon generated by Ganymede’s
magnetic fields. A saline ocean under the moon’s icy crust best explains
shifting in the auroral belts measured by Hubble.
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