Thursday, March 12, 2015

Ocean Confirmed on Ganymede

The Hubble Space Telescope has just confirmed Jupiter’s icy moon Ganymede contains a liquid body of water high in salinity. Although the moon likely contains the same volcanic vents that spawned life here on Earth, getting to that ocean would be quite challenging considering it is covered by an ice sheet 95 miles thick. Nevertheless, the moon is one of several hotspots right here in our own solar system where extraterrestrial life in the form of microbes or multicellular aquatic organisms might exist. "Ganymede joins other neighborhood moons like Europa, the asteroid belt dwarf planet Ceres, and Saturn's Enceladus and Titan that host strange icy or liquid layers, making them prime targets in the search for life beyond Earth." Read more at cnet.com.


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