Tantalizing

NASA reveals how spacecraft will land on tantalizing ocean world

by

NASA is headed to Jupiter’s fascinating moon Europa this year. Scientists suspect a deep ocean sloshes beneath the icy world’s crust. The looming mission, called Europa Clipper, will launch in October, sending a spacecraft the length of a basketball court to make around 50 flybys by the distant Jovian moon, assessing whether it could harbor … Read more

The Tantalizing Mystery of the Solar System’s Hidden Oceans

by

And yet, defiantly, these alien seas remain liquid. A Mirror-Wrapped Ocean Scientists suspect that a handful of moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn—and maybe even some spinning around Uranus and Neptune—harbor oceans. Hefty Ganymede and crater-scarred Callisto produce weak, Europa-like magnetic signals. Saturn’s haze-covered Titan, too, very probably has a liquid-water subsurface ocean. These “are the … Read more