Earth Science Zoe Hutchings
Current Event 03/12/15
Chang, Kenneth. "Suddenly, It Seems, Water Is Everywhere in Solar System." The New York Times. The New York Times, 12 Mar. 2015. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.\
Suddenly, It Seems, Water Is Everywhere in Solar System
A report was made earlier in the week, in the journal Nature, by a group of scientists that came together and reported that there is evidence of hydrothermal vents on one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus. It is quite common in our solar system that an ocean is trapped under ice on either a planet or a moon, one of these oceans trapped under ice is on Enceladus, and discoveries have shown that it is quite hot. To scientists, the most surprising thing is the heat, because the planet is so small it almost seems impossible to them as to how it can produce so much heat. Enceladus is the only planet, besides Earth, in our solar system where a chemical reaction occurs between rock and heated water. Because of the chemical reaction between the heated water and rock, to many scientists life on Enceladus is promising. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft was on its way to Saturn, and as it approached Saturn, the spacecraft came across dust particles. These dust particles were high in silicon and had been traced back to Saturn’s E ring. The material in Saturn’s E ring originates back to Enceladus. Scientists performed laboratory experiments to see what could be producing the silica particles. The results of the experiment were alkaline water which had to be heated to at least 194 degrees. These results fit in with the findings that suggested there is an ocean on Enceladus. Another group of scientists named Space Physics, published their research in The Journal. They had reported signs of another ocean that is trapped under ice on Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede. The earliest evidence of Ganymede having an ocean came from magnetic measurements during a flyby by the Galileo probe. The flyby gave us information that suggested there was a conductive layer below the surface. The thing is, ice is not a good conductor, but saltwater is. The readings that came back from the flyby could have been created by oddities in Ganymede’s magnetic field. For so many years scientists had focused on Mars which is so dry and very much dead, so they are now happy to have sort of directed themselves away from Mars and onto a new planet/moon in our solar system.
Finding out that there could be oceans on other planets and moons in our solar system is a big deal for us as a society, and in the future could be life changing. It may not affect our generation, but it could greatly impact generations to come. The finding of other possible oceans on other planets/moons in our solar system is a step forward in there being a chance of life on other planets/moons. Making these discoveries also encourages scientists to want to advance the technology we have at this current moment in time, because it will make them want to discover more about these possible oceans on other planets/moons. These discoveries could also lead to other questions about our solar system and what more is out there that we don’t know about. And hopefully in the near future we will know more about this topic and have more findings on other planets/moons.
I thought this article was a good choice for this quarters current event, since we have recently talked in class about our solar system and possibility of life other than our own planet. This article helped to keep me informed on what is happening in our solar system, and without reading this article i would not have know about these recent discoveries and definitely this huge step forward in science. The article was very well written and I liked the use of quotes from scientists because it was interesting to read about what they had to say about the topic of possible oceans on other planets/moons. I would have liked to have been told more about why Enceladus is such a small planet, yet it is so hot. I thought maybe they could have provided a little more information about that, but I am still left with questions about how it gets that hot but it almost seems impossible to scientists because it is such a small planet. Other than that I enjoyed reading this article, and I was interested in what the article was telling me and I was encouraged to finish the article because to me it was very interesting.
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