Tag Archive for 'Ocean'

This graphic illustrates how Cassini scientists think water interacts with rock at the bottom of Enceladus’ ocean, producing hydrogen gas. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / Southwest Research Institute.

Study: Active, Seafloor Hydrothermal Systems on Small Ocean Worlds Could Support Life

Jun 25, 2024 by News Staff

Ocean worlds are planetary bodies that have a liquid ocean, often under an icy shell or within the rocky interior. In our own Solar System, several moons...

Life may have begun shortly after Earth formed 4.54 billion years ago. Image credit: Hadeano.

Great Oxidation Event Lasted At Least 200 Million Years, New Study Reveals

Jun 12, 2024 by News Staff

About 2.5 billion years ago, free oxygen first started to accumulate to meaningful levels in Earth’s atmosphere, setting the stage for the rise of complex...

This high-resolution image of Pluto was taken by New Horizons on July 14. Pluto’s surface sports a remarkable range of subtle colors, enhanced in this view to a rainbow of pale blues, yellows, oranges, and deep reds. Many landforms have their own distinct colors, telling a complex geological and climatological story that scientists have only just begun to decode. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.

Pluto’s Subsurface Ocean is 8% Denser than Seawater on Earth, Study Suggests

May 21, 2024 by News Staff

Planetary researchers from Washington University in St. Louis and the Lunar and Planetary Institute have used mathematical models and unprecedented high-resolution...

An artist’s impression of the early Earth. Image credit: NASA.

Near-Collapse of Geomagnetic Field May Have Contributed to Diversification of Life on Earth

May 10, 2024 by News Staff

An ultra-weak geomagnetic field between 591 and 565 million years ago (Ediacaran period) coincided with a significant increase in the oxygen levels in...

Representation of Cassini’s orbits used to calculate Titan’s gravity; the colored part of the orbits shows the distance from Cassini to Titan with the smallest distance in red; the cross-section of Titan shows the moon’s different layers with the ocean in blue; Saturn with rings and ring shadows can be seen in the background. Image credit: Britt Griswold, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Cassini Observations Suggest Underground Ocean on Titan

May 10, 2024 by News Staff

Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, harbors an internal low-density ocean of water or ammonia, according to an analysis of archival data from NASA’s Cassini...

This Pluto mosaic was made from New Horizons LORRI images taken on July 14, 2015, from a distance of 49,700 miles (80,000 km). This view is projected from a point 1,118 miles (1,800 km) above Pluto’s equator, looking northeast over the dark, cratered Cthulhu Regio toward the bright, smooth expanse of icy plains called Sputnik Planum. Pluto’s North Pole is off the image to the left. This mosaic was produced with panchromatic images from the New Horizons LORRI camera, with color overlaid from the Ralph color mapper onboard New Horizons. Image credit: S.A. Stern et al.

Planetary Researchers Solve Mystery of How Pluto Got Its Pear-Shaped Feature

Apr 16, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Pluto’s surface is dominated by the huge, pear-shaped basin Sputnik Planitia. It appears to be of impact origin, but modeling has not yet explained its...

Toffoli et al. report direct observations of surface waves from a stereo camera system along with concurrent measurements of wind speed during an expedition across the Southern Ocean in the austral winter aboard the South African icebreaker S.A. Agulhas II. Image credit: Alessandro Toffoli.

Strong Winds Drive Formation of Colossal Rogue Waves, Scientists Say

Apr 16, 2024 by News Staff

A rogue wave is a single swell that is much higher than nearby waves, which can damage ships or coastal infrastructure. Ocean waves are among the most...

The human occupied vehicle Alvin arriving at the seafloor. Image credit: J. McDermott, Lehigh University / T. Barreyre, CNRS / R. Parnell-Turner, Scripps Institution of Oceanography / D. Fornari, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution / National Deep Submergence Facility / Alvin Group.

Researchers Discover Five New Hydrothermal Vents in Pacific Ocean

Mar 27, 2024 by News Staff

Scientists aboard the research vessel Atlantis have discovered five new deep-sea hydrothermal vent sites on the seafloor at 2,550 m (1.6 miles) depth....

This image from Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera shows the globe of Mars set against a dark background. The disk of the planet features yellow, orange, blue and green patches, all with an overall muted grey hue, representing the varying composition of the surface. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / G. Michael / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Mars Drives Deep-Ocean Circulation in Earth’s Oceans, Study Suggests

Mar 13, 2024 by News Staff

Geoscientists from Australia and France have used the geological record of Earth’s deep oceans to discover a connection between the orbits of our home...

This illustration shows charged particles from Jupiter impacting Europa’s surface, splitting frozen water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen molecules; scientists believe some of these newly created oxygen gases could migrate toward the moon’s subsurface ocean, as depicted in the inset image. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SWRI / PU.

Europa Produces Less Oxygen than Previously Thought

Mar 4, 2024 by News Staff

Using data from the Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE) instrument onboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft, planetary scientists have calculated the...

An artist’s rendering of the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Image credit: Benjamin de Bivort, debivort.org / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Titan Most Likely Non-Habitable, Astrobiologists Say

Feb 20, 2024 by News Staff

Saturn’s moon Titan has an organic-rich atmosphere and surface with a subsurface ocean that may represent a habitable environment. In a new study, astrobiologists...

An artistic reconstruction of the Cabrières Biota: in the foreground, a row of Ampyx (trilobites) and various shelly organisms, including brachiopods and a hyolith (bottom left corner); behind the trilobites, a lobopodian, a chelicerate, cnidarians (blue), sponges (green), thin branching algae (red and green) and hemichordate tubes (purple), along with some mollusks; bivalved arthropods inhabit the water column along with graptolites. Image credit: Christian McCall, Prehistorica Art.

Unique Fossil Site Discovered in France Provides Insights into Ordovician Polar Ecosystems

Feb 9, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

In a new paper in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, paleontologists described the diversity of the Cabrières Biota, a new Early Ordovician site...

Mimas’ surface, like the surfaces of most of the other major Saturnian moons without atmospheres, is not pure ice but contains some dark impurities; the relatively dark markings appear along the lower portion of the walls of the 130-km-wide Herschel Crater (the peak in the middle of the crater is about as tall as Mount Everest; the impact that made it likely almost destroyed the moon) and some of the smaller craters; scientists interpret this darkening as evidence for the gradual concentration of impurities from evaporating icy materials in areas where the dark impurities slide slowly down the crater wall. Image credit: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute.

Saturn’s Moon Mimas Harbors Global Ocean beneath Its Icy Shell, Study Suggests

Feb 7, 2024 by News Staff

From detailed analysis of Mimas’ orbital motion based on data from NASA’s Cassini mission, planetary researchers from Sorbonne Université, Nantes...

Reconstruction of Timorebestia koprii in the pelagic ecosystem preserved in Sirius Passet; other species shown in the foreground are Kiisortoqia, Siricaris, Kerygmachela, Pauloterminus, Kleptothule, and Isoxys; further in the background are two radiodonts: Tamisiocaris and an amplectobeluid. Image credit: Robert Nicholls / BobNichollsArt.

‘Giant’ Predatory Worms Lived in Greenland Waters 518 Million Years Ago

Jan 4, 2024 by News Staff

Adorned with fins down the sides of its body, a distinct head with long antennae, massive jaw structures inside its mouth and growing to more than 30 cm...

An artist’s impression of the super-Earth planet Ross 508b. Image credit: Sci-News.com.

Astronomers Find New Way to Detect Water Oceans and Alien Life on Rocky Exoplanets

Dec 29, 2023 by News Staff

Planets too close to their star are too hot (such as Venus), those too far, are too cold (like Mars), whereas planets in the habitable zone are just right....

Enceladus’ tiger stripes are known to be spewing ice from the moon’s icy interior into space, creating a cloud of fine ice particles over the moon’s south pole and creating Saturn’s mysterious E-ring. Evidence for this has come from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft that orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017. Pictured here, a high resolution image of Enceladus is shown from a close flyby. Tiger stripes are visible in false-color blue. Image credit: NASA / ESA / JPL / SSI / Cassini Imaging Team.

Enceladus’ Surface May Contain Relatively High Abundances of Pristine Organic Material

Dec 21, 2023 by News Staff

Enceladus, the sixth-biggest moon of Saturn, presents a remarkable opportunity in our Solar System for searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life,...

This artist’s impression shows Proxima b orbiting Proxima Centauri, which at only 4.23 light-years is the closest star to our Solar System. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image between the exoplanet and Proxima itself. Image credit: M. Kornmesser / ESO.

Proxima b May Harbor Explosive Cryovolcanoes and Habitable Subsurface Ocean

Dec 15, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers from NASA and the University of Washington have estimated total internal heating rates and depths to possible subsurface oceans for 17 planets...

Molecular hydrogen points to hydrothermal activity in an ocean beneath the icy surface of Enceladus. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Ice Plumes of Saturn’s Icy Moon Enceladus May Hold Amino Acids, Study Suggests

Dec 5, 2023 by News Staff

Enceladus is a prime target in the search for life in the Solar System, identified by NASA as the second-highest priority site for a flagship mission in...

This image of Ganymede was obtained by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft during its June 7, 2021, flyby of the icy moon. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS.

Juno Detects Various Salts and Organic Compounds on Ganymede

Nov 1, 2023 by News Staff

Using data from the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft, planetary scientists have detected hydrated sodium chloride,...

3D seismic imaging and ocean drilling at the Hikurangi margin reveal a widespread and previously unknown fluid reservoir within the extensively hydrated (up to 47 vol % water) volcanic upper crust of the subducting Hikurangi Plateau large igneous province. Image credit: Gase et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adh0150.

Geoscientists Discover Massive Undersea Water Reservoir Off New Zealand’s Coast

Oct 4, 2023 by News Staff

Revealed by 3D seismic imaging, the newly-discovered water reservoir lies 3.2 km (2 miles) under the ocean floor off the coast of New Zealand, where it...

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