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Jupiter Moon Ganymede May Have An Ocean
matth writes: "This article talks about how Jupiter's moon, Ganymede, may have a salt water ocean on it. Kind of interesting in light of all we have been talking about with water on planets and what not. If NASA does find water on a planet, the implications could be outstanding, on the other hand, they have yet to find any water on any planet for sure.. yet.... More on Ganymede here."
The issua of the existence of water in the Jovian Moons was solved long ago. Since Voyager, a large segment of the scientific community came into the conclusion that is a main component of most Moons and specially Europa. Later other evidence showed that water plays a very specific role in the formation of most satellites beyond Jupiter. There is even a phenomena generally called "water volcanism" that suggests that water acts in certain planets, much the same way as we see volcanism in our Hawaian volcanos. This is still under question as all we have is pictures of Triton showing something similar to this.
Anyway it was a long time question wether this water had a presence in liquid form. At the beginning only Europe suggested such a phenomena. Densities are so low in this planet that many strongly suggested that Europe was mostly a "water world". Besides its "glass-like" surface gave a weight in these argumentations. Ganymede, Calisto and other planets beyond Jupiter were considered to possess water but in "dirty-forms", that means strongly mixed with minerals.
Now the findings seem to cast a new light on the formation of the Solar System. It seems that water is playing a bigger and more fundamental role in its formation. Somehow this suggests the lack of water as an "exclusion" rather than a rule. The Moon, Mercury or Venus become more "outsiders" rather than players in thsi game.
on the other hand, they have yet to find any water on any planet for sure.. yet
This explains why I've been thirsty all my life here on earth.
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I'm just an ordinary man with nothing to lose.
It may have a weird shape and color, but it will be DNA-based.
For a long time I got annoyed by books/tv programmes/whatever that talked about 'alien dna'. However, I've come to realise that any life -- wherever it originates -- is likely to be DNA based. Not will be, I hasten to add, but likely to be. Why? Because the building blocks are very common.
Despite all the talk in science fiction of silicon based lifeforms, it's still far more likely that anything will be carbon based. Any life is likely to use what we call organic molecules; scientists have even calculated that adenine, one of the four bases, can be formed in space. Given the prevalance of amino acids around the universe, I'd be (pleasantly) surprised to find life anywhere based on anything else. I'd say, though, that DNA based life is, if not ubiquitous, then at least common.
Nit-picking? probably. I do agree that alien life would be phenomenally interesting from a scientific POV, but to echo the original poster, the ocean still holds untold secrets, from which we have much, much to learn.
Hey, maybe there's an advanced civilization underneath! Since they're stuck under a 120 mile crust, they can't see planets and stars, so they cannot discover universal gravitation, and cannot invent calculus. The college student dream!
You know, all this money could be saved if they just went to Sri Lanka and asked Arthur C. Clarke what's exactly out there.
He's predicted so many things during his long literary career it's eerie.
The title suggests that Ganymede has an ocean on its surface. The article clearly says that it has an ocean below its crust! What's more is that it says there might be a stable layer of water trapped between two layers of ice 90 to 120 miles below the surface of Ganymede.
I'm looking at this a bit differently. The water on Ganymede sounds like it could be analogized to the mantle underneath the Earth's crust. It's convection and movement is responsible for the Earth's magnetic field, and it is a melted version of the crust above it. The analogy is a stretch, but I think that is a more accurate way of viewing what this water actually is. Granted, this is still an analogy...