Cassini spacecraft


New Places to Look Despite failing to find water and life in places like Mars so far, I’m not discouraged. I have other places to look. Take the moons that orbit Saturn and Jupiter, for example. Some may have oceans of liquid water. Sometimes, these oceans literally jump out


at us. One ocean on Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, is a good example. When the Cassini spacecraſt flew past this moon, it snapped photos. Some showed geysers at the moon’s south pole spraying icy water. T at water has to come from somewhere. T ere could be a sea just under the moon’s crust.


Dive below an icy crust to discover Europa’s Ocean


geysers spraying icy ocean water


cold, hard ice crust soft ice crust liquid water ocean 22


Tidal Tug Europa, a moon that orbits Jupiter, excites me even more. It’s covered by an icy crust that’s 10 km thick. Images taken by the Galileo spacecraſt show deep cracks in the crust and jagged ice cliff s. T is rugged landscape tells us there’s liquid water on Europa. Europa also has a rocky core. Between its


crust and core flows an ocean 100 km deep. T is ocean covers the moon and holds over twice as much water as we have on Earth. You’d think this ocean would be frozen


solid. Aſt er all, Europa is far from the sun, and ice covers it. Yet only its surface is frozen. As Europa orbits Jupiter, the planet’s


gravity pulls on the moon. T at makes the water move a little like tides on Earth. T e movement cracks the icy crust. It also creates enough heat to keep the water from freezing. All this data points to one conclusion. It


tells us that Europa has a key factor needed for life to exist. It has liquid water.


Jupiter


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