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Oxygen Found Around Saturn's Moon Dione

Posted by Soulskill on Friday March 2, 2012 @07:42AM from the don't-plan-vacation-just-yet dept.

New submitter S810 writes "According to an article in Discovery News, oxygen was found by the Cassini spacecraft around Dione, one of Saturn's large moons. 'It is thought the oxygen is being produced via interactions between Saturn's powerful radiation belts and Dione's water ice. The radiation breaks the water molecules down, liberating oxygen into the moon's exosphere.' Hopefully this will open the door for more funding of research int the moons of Saturn and Jupiter."

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Re:Grab the remote... by zill · 2012-03-02 08:18 · Score: 3, Informative

I'm not thrilled because it's old news. Europa was found to have a mostly oxygen atmosphere back in 1995. Just like Dione, that "atmosphere" is too thin to be useful at only 0.1 uPa.