Are these oceans of water or Methane ? Anyone Know ?

On Titan they are methane on Enceladus and europa it is believed to be water

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

I wonder hoe they think that they know. If Methane is on one moon, I myself would guess that they are all methane. Why methane on one but not the others.

Well I'm pretty sure they have analysed the spectra of the geysers and determined them to be water.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Jupiter: Ganymede

NASA’s Hubble Observations Suggest Underground Ocean on Jupiter's Largest Moon

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has the best evidence yet for an underground saltwater ocean on Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon. The subterranean ocean is thought to have more water than all the water on Earth's surface.

Identifying liquid water is crucial in the search for habitable worlds beyond Earth and for the search of life as we know it.

“This discovery marks a significant milestone, highlighting what only Hubble can accomplish,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, Washington. “In its 25 years in orbit, Hubble has made many scientific discoveries in our own solar system. A deep ocean under the icy crust of Ganymede opens up further exciting possibilities for life beyond Earth.”

http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/march/nasa-s-hubble-observations-suggest-underground-ocean-on-jupiters-largest-moon/index.html

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In the case of Europa, at least, a probe has measured its interactions with magnetic fields and determined that there’s a conductive layer beneath the surface, consistent with salt water, while methane is nonpolar—and would tend to boil off from the warmth of the moon’s interior. Water is also one of very few substances whose liquid phase is denser than the solid; high pressures actually impede its freezing.

Thank-you thats good info

Thank-you thats good info

+1

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rOZZ
Music
Pictures

Saturn:

Icy Tendrils Reaching into Saturn Ring Traced to Their Source

Long, sinuous, tendril-like structures seen in the vicinity of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus originate directly from geysers erupting from its surface, according to scientists studying images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.

This result is published online today in a study in the Astronomical Journal, along with additional insights into the nature of the structures.

"We've been able to show that each unique tendril structure can be reproduced by particular sets of geysers on the moon's surface," said Colin Mitchell, a Cassini imaging team associate at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and lead author of the paper. Mitchell and colleagues used computer simulations to follow the trajectories of

ice grains ejected from individual geysers. The geysers, which were discovered by Cassini in 2005, are jets of tiny water ice particles, water vapor and simple organic compounds.


This collage of Cassini spacecraft images and computer simulations shows how long, sinuous features from Enceladus can be modeled by tracing the trajectories of tiny, icy grains ejected from the moon's south polar geysers.

http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/cassini/icy-tendrils-reaching-into-saturn-ring-traced-to-their-source/index.html

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Europa:

NASA Research Reveals Europa's Mystery Dark Material Could Be Sea Salt

The study is accepted for publication in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and is available online.

“We have many questions about Europa, the most important and most difficult to answer being is there life? Research like this is important because it focuses on questions we can definitively answer, like whether or not Europa is inhabitable,” said Curt Niebur, Outer Planets Program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Once we have those answers, we can tackle the bigger question about life in the ocean beneath Europa’s ice shell.”

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-research-reveals-europas-mystery-dark-material-could-be-sea-salt

Squid for Europa:
http://www.space.com/29359-squid-rover-nasa-niac-space-tech.html

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

Europa:

NASA TV to Air Announcement of Instruments for Europa Mission

WASHINGTON, May 21, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will announce on Tuesday, May 26, the selection of science instruments for a mission to Europa, to investigate whether Jupiter's icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasa-tv-to-air-announcement-of-instruments-for-europa-mission-300087650.html

Europa:

NASA TV to Air Announcement of Instruments for Europa Mission

WASHINGTON, May 21, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will announce on Tuesday, May 26, the selection of science instruments for a mission to Europa, to investigate whether Jupiter's icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasa-tv-to-air-announcement-of-instruments-for-europa-mission-300087650.html

I hope they take this http://www.geek.com/science/nasas-ice-drilling-europa-robot-gets-tested-in-alaska-1600265/

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

NASA’s Europa Mission Begins with Selection of Science Instruments

NASA has selected nine science instruments for a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, to investigate whether the mysterious icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life.

NASA’s Galileo mission yielded strong evidence that Europa, about the size of Earth’s moon, has an ocean beneath a frozen crust of unknown thickness. If proven to exist, this global ocean could have more than twice as much water as Earth. With abundant salt water, a rocky sea floor, and the energy and chemistry provided by tidal heating, Europa could be the best place in the solar system to look for present day life beyond our home planet.

http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-europa-mission-begins-with-selection-of-science-instruments

update:

NASA is not ready to detect alien life on Jupiter's beautiful water-rich moon

In humanity's ultimate quest to discover life beyond Earth, astrobiologists are looking to water-rich worlds within our cosmic neighborhood like Saturn's moon Enceladus or Jupiter's moon Europa.

Looking from afar is about the only thing they'll be doing for a long while.

http://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-europa-mission-instruments-2015-6

I think they are still afraid of contaminating Europa's oceans with biology from earth.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.

Those icy stalagmites sound pretty wicked.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

I think they are still afraid of contaminating Europa's oceans with biology from earth.

And they are right. Every celestial body has its own ecosystem we shouldn't intervene with. We adapted ourselves to our own environment on earth, the life (if there is any) in Europa's ocean has done the same.

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rOZZ
Music
Pictures

I think they are still afraid of contaminating Europa's oceans with biology from earth.

Rubish!

All those bacteria or viruses which would survive the DEEP SPACE contamination...would still be on Europa!
It's not so near hear, to come to Jupiter...& to cross Jupiter Van der Valts belts!

We do clean them...but not many things can survive the trip anyway!
Of those which survive...same things are probably there...arrived with meteors & asteroids...
;)

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non-profit org. Play4Life in Zagreb, Croatia, EU

I think they are still afraid of contaminating Europa's oceans with biology from earth.

Rubish!

All those bacteria or viruses which would survive the DEEP SPACE contamination...would still be on Europa!
It's not so near hear, to come to Jupiter...& to cross Jupiter Van der Valts belts!

We do clean them...but not many things can survive the trip anyway!
Of those which survive...same things are probably there...arrived with meteors & asteroids...
;)

+1

I'm not sure what you are + ing. (a) the idea that we can't harm the environment of moons with water or (b) the idea that we need to avoid adding our biology to these moons.

Personally I don't see a problem if earth biology gets seeded on one or more of the solar system's moons. But there is a large faction that sees such an event as a catastrophe.

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Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.