DailyDirt: Water On The Earth And Beyond…

Surprises

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The Earth is obviously covered in a lot of water, but a lot more water could potentially exist below the Earth’s surface. It’s actually somewhat difficult to know exactly how much water exists on our own planet, so it’s even harder to figure out how much water exists on other planets or moons. We also don’t really know where all the Earth’s water originally came from — icy comets, asteroids or some chemical process that could only occur while the Earth itself was forming. But in any case, water is a fascinating substance to look for, and here are just a few articles on this unique liquid.

• Jupiter’s moon, Europa, could have a vast saltwater ocean below its surface — possibly containing more liquid water than all of the Earth’s oceans. Images showing the bumpy surface of Europa suggest that there are “chaos terrains” similar to those on Earth, which could help us understand the geology of Europa better. [url]
• The “Goldilocks Zone” for extrasolar planets refers to the orbital space where the conditions are just right for liquid water to exist. But that doesn’t mean water actually does exist on the other worlds we’ve discovered so far. [url]
• Russian scientists are drilling down through over 2 miles of ice to Antarctica’s biggest subglacial lake, Vostok. There could be exotic lifeforms in these waters which haven’t seen daylight for millions of years. [url]
• Based on radar measurements, the sediment coverage on the surface of Mars suggests the red planet once had two oceans. These oceans may not have existed long enough to support life formation, and it’s not known where all the water went. [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what’s floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: chaos terrains, europa, extrasolar planets, goldilocks zone, jupiter, mars, oceans, vostok, water