Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography Archives

NASA ID: PIA26106 (Artist's Concept) https://images.nasa.gov/details/PIA26106

Astrogeology, Europa, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Missions & Hardware, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

How REASON Will Penetrate Europa’s Surface

by Keith CowingDecember 2, 2024December 2, 2024

This artist’s concept illustrates how NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will use radar to peer beneath Europa’s ice crust to reveal the structure underneath.

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Missions & Hardware, Plant Biology, Press Release, Space Stations, Tricorders & Sensors, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Orbital Recon: EMIT Collects Data On Terrestrial Plant Communities

by Keith CowingDecember 2, 2024November 30, 2024

Editor’s note: when we begin to survey new worlds up close with reconnaissance spacecraft – from orbit – we will need an array of sensors capable of gleaning as much […]

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Orbital Recon: EMIT Scans The Amazon River in Northern Brazil

by Keith CowingDecember 1, 2024November 30, 2024

Editor’s note: when we begin to survey new worlds up close with reconnaissance spacecraft – from orbit – we will need an array of sensors capable of gleaning as much […]

Circles denote the location of eDNA samples collected and preserved by the ESP onboard Surveyor during its ~4200-km transit over 29 days (June 10–July 9, 2021) from San Francisco to the Hawaiian Islands. Transit across oceanographic domains, from the California Current upwelling system to the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, is represented by sea surface temperature (SST) from satellite remote sensing. Shown is the June 2021 average of multiscale ultra-high resolution (MUR) SST Analysis fv04.1, acquired from https://coastwatch.pfeg.noaa.gov/erddap/index.html.

Analog Studies, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exploration Gear & Tech, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Habitable Zones, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Microbiology & Virology, Missions & Hardware, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, ROVs/Submersibles/Diving, Sample Return, Status Report, Tricorders & Sensors, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Ocean Planet Exploration Droids: Autonomous eDNA Collection Using An Uncrewed Surface Vessel

by Keith CowingNovember 30, 2024November 30, 2024

The collection of environmental DNA (eDNA) samples is often laborious, costly, and logistically difficult to accomplish at high frequency in remote locations and over large geographic areas.

Ariel, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Miranda, Oberon, Press Release, Titania, Umbriel, Uranus, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Uranus’ Swaying Moons Will Help Spacecraft Seek Out Hidden Oceans

by Keith CowingNovember 29, 2024May 12, 2025

When NASA’s Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, it captured grainy photographs of large ice-covered moons. Now nearly 40 years later, NASA plans to send another spacecraft to Uranus, […]

Cross-correlation SNRs as a function of systemic velocity (Vsys) and Keplerian velocity (Kp) for H2O, CH4, CO2, and CO from the four nights combined. We detect H2O at an SNR of 3.51 but do not detect any carbon-bearing species, although CO may be a tenative detection. The white dashed lines represent the Vsys and Kp values of WASP-43b from the literature (Gaia Collaboration et al. 2018; Bonomo et al. 2017). The red x’s indicate the maximum signal from the literature (Gaia Collaboration et al. 2018; Bonomo et al. 2017). The red x’s indicate the maximum signal from the cross-correlation. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

A Measurement of the Water Abundance in the Atmosphere of the Hot Jupiter WASP-43b with High-resolution Cross-correlation Spectroscopy

by Keith CowingNovember 28, 2024November 28, 2024

Measuring the abundances of carbon- and oxygen-bearing molecules has been a primary focus in studying the atmospheres of hot Jupiters, as doing so can help constrain the carbon-to-oxygen (C/O) ratio. […]

Radiative cooling rate per molecule under optically thin and LTE conditions as a function of temperature. The upper panel shows the cooling rates of C-bearing species, while the lower panel displays those of H- and O-bearing species, respectively. The net radiative cooling rate of each species is calculated by summing the cooling rate for each energy transition (Equation (12) in Supplementary Information), with reference to line data provided by HITRAN and ExoMol database. -- astro-ph.EP

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Suppression of Hydrodynamic Escape of an H2-rich Early Earth Atmosphere by Radiative Cooling of Carbon Oxides

by Keith CowingNovember 27, 2024September 18, 2025

Radiative cooling by molecules is a crucial process for hydrodynamic escape, as it can efficiently remove the thermal energy driving the outflow, acquired through X-ray and extreme UV absorption. Carbon […]

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Cryobiology, Exploration Gear & Tech, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Titan, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Launch Services Contract Awarded For Dragonfly Astrobiology Mission

by Keith CowingNovember 26, 2024

NASA has selected SpaceX to provide launch services for the Dragonfly mission, a rotorcraft lander mission under NASA’s New Frontiers Program, designed to explore Saturn’s moon Titan. The mission will […]

Models for the interior structures of the ice-giant planets Uranus and Neptune have two distinct, intermediate layers: an upper, water-rich convecting layer where disorganized magnetic fields are generated, and a lower, non-convecting hydrocarbon-rich layer. New computer simulations show that icy materials naturally separate at high pressure and temperature into these two layers. Credit Burkhard Militzer, UC Berkeley

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Neptune, Press Release, Uranus, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

A Clue To What Lies Beneath The Bland Surfaces Of Uranus And Neptune

by Keith CowingNovember 26, 2024May 12, 2025

Diamond rain? Super-ionic water? These are just two proposals that planetary scientists have come up with for what lies beneath the thick, bluish, hydrogen-and-helium atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune, our […]

This animation shows how the boom of Europa Clipper’s magnetometer deployed — while the spacecraft was in flight — to its full length of 28 feet (8.5 meters). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Europa, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Jupiter, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Europa Clipper Astrobiology Mission Is Deploying Instruments

by Keith CowingNovember 25, 2024November 25, 2024

NASA’s Europa Clipper, which launched Oct. 14 on a journey to Jupiter’s moon Europa, is already 13 million miles (20 million kilometers) from Earth. Two science instruments have deployed hardware […]