Tag Archive for 'Water'

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...

This image, obtained by the High Resolution Stereo Camera aboard ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft, shows Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano not only on Mars but in the entire Solar System. Image credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin.

Water Frost Deposits Spotted on Tropical Martian Volcanoes

Jun 11, 2024 by News Staff

Using high-resolution color images from ESA’s Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and Mars Express missions, planetary researchers have found evidence for morning...

An artistic conception of the early Earth. Image credit: Simone Marchi / NASA.

Freshwater Appeared on Earth About 4 Billion Years Ago, Study Suggests

Jun 4, 2024 by Natali Anderson

Analyzing 4-billion-year-old zircon crystals from the Jack Hills in Western Australia’s Mid West region, geoscientists have pushed back the timeline...

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...

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...

Venus today is dry thanks to water loss to space as atomic hydrogen. Image credit: Aurore Simonnet / Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics / University of Colorado at Boulder.

New Study Explains Why Venus is Extremely Dry

May 7, 2024 by News Staff

Despite its Earth-like size and source material, Venus is extremely dry, indicating near-total water loss to space. Using computer simulations, planetary...

This Webb image shows NGC 6440, a globular cluster located 27,625 light-years away in the constellation of Sagittarius. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / P. Freire / M. Cadelano / C. Pallanca.

Webb Explores Stellar Population of NGC 6440

May 1, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

NGC 6440 is a typical massive, obscured and contaminated globular cluster formed and orbiting within the bulge of our Milky Way Galaxy. This Webb image...

Collins et al. estimated flow through 3 million river segments, identifying locations around the world marked by intense human water use, including parts of the Colorado, Amazon, Orange, and Murray-Darling river basins, shown as gray here. Image credit: NASA.

New Study Provides Estimates of How Much Water Courses through Earth’s Rivers

Apr 30, 2024 by News Staff

Accurate assessment of global river flows and stores is critical for informing water management practices, but current estimates of global river flows...

Computational models are used to examine the effect of schooling on flow generated noise of fish swimming using their caudal fins. Zhou et al. simulated the flow as well as the far-field hydrodynamic sound generated by the time-varying pressure loading on these carangiform swimmers. Image credit: Zhou et al., doi: 10.1088/1748-3190/ad3a4e.

Schools of Fish Can Make Less Noise than Solitary Swimmer, Study Shows

Apr 10, 2024 by News Staff

A team of engineers at Johns Hopkins University has found that a school of fish moving together in just the right way is stunningly effective at noise...

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 side of a commemorative plate mounted on NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft features U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s handwritten In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

NASA Scientists Unveil Design for Europa Clipper’s ‘Golden Record’

Mar 12, 2024 by News Staff

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will carry a triangular metal plate with a special message when it launches in October 2024 and heads toward Jupiter’s...

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...

This ALMA image shows the water vapor (shades of blue) in the protoplanetary disk around HL Tauri; near the center of the disk, where the young star lives, the environment is hotter and the gas brighter; the red-hued rings are previous ALMA observations showing the distribution of dust around the star. Image credit: ALMA / ESO / NAOJ / NRAO / Facchini et al.

ALMA Detects Water Vapor in Protoplanetary Disk around Young Star

Feb 29, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

The water molecule is a key ingredient in the formation of planetary systems. Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA)...

Jezero Crater, one of the paleolakes examined in the study, is a paleolake and potential landing site for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission to look for past life; the outlet canyon carved by overflow flooding is visible in the upper right side of the crater; ancient rivers carved the inlets on the left side of the crater. Image credit: NASA / Tim Goudge.

Ancient Mars May Have Had Hydrothermal Systems

Feb 22, 2024 by News Staff

The history of water on Mars is a puzzle that is of interest to planetary scientists as well as the general public. The Red Planet currently has water...

Shuai et al. used a synchronized attosecond X-ray pulse pair (pictured pink and green here) from an X-ray free electron laser to study the energetic response of electrons (gold) in liquid water on attosecond time scale, while the hydrogen (white) and oxygen (red) atoms are ‘frozen’ in time. Image credit: Nathan Johnson, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Physicists Take First Look at Electrons Moving in Real-Time in Liquid Water

Feb 16, 2024 by News Staff

A research team led by Argonne National Laboratory physicists has isolated the energetic movement of an electron while ‘freezing’ the motion of the...

Arredondo et al. looked at four silicate-rich asteroids using the FORCAST instrument on NASA’s SOFIA observatory to isolate the mid-infrared spectral signatures indicative of molecular water on two of them: Iris and Massalia. Image credit: NASA / Carla Thomas / Southwest Research Institute.

SOFIA Detects Molecular Water on Nominally Dry Asteroids

Feb 13, 2024 by News Staff

Using the FORCAST instrument on NASA’s retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), astronomers have obtained mid-infrared spectra...

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...

The water detection in the transit spectrum of Gliese 9827d makes it the first water world candidate with an atmospheric water detection consistent with a water-rich envelope. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Leah Hustak, STScI / Ralf Crawford, STScI.

Hubble Detects Water Vapor in Atmosphere of Gliese 9827d

Jan 25, 2024 by News Staff

Using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) instrument onboard the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have detected water vapor in the transmission...

This image shows a height map of the Martian surface, with lowest land in blue and highest in white. Image credit: ESA.

Mars Express Finds New Evidence for Ice-Rich Layered Deposits in Medusae Fossae

Jan 22, 2024 by News Staff

Over 15 years ago, ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft studied the Medusae Fossae Formation, revealing enigmatic deposits up to 2.5 km deep. From those early...

Litman et al. show that ions and water molecules at the surface of most salt-water solutions, known as electrolyte solutions, are organized in a completely different way than traditionally understood. Image credit: Litman et al., doi: 10.1038/s41557-023-01416-6.

Water Molecules at Salt Water’s Surface Organized Differently than Previously Thought: Study

Jan 17, 2024 by News Staff

The distribution of ions at the air/water interface plays a decisive role in many natural processes. Several studies have reported that larger ions tend...

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