Water Archives

Images: SuperCam RMI color images showing various types of textures.

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Sample Return

Unburied Treasure: Rover Researchers Find Unexpected Minerals On Mars

by Keith CowingMarch 5, 2025March 5, 2025

Sometimes scientists must dig and work and sweat to make scientific discoveries. And sometimes a robot rolls over a rock that turns out to be a revelation.

Scientists have finally observed plastic ice (illustrated), a sort of hybrid phase between solid ice and liquid water that may form in the interiors of icy worlds like Neptune and Jupiter’s moon Europa. In plastic ice, the individual molecules are held in fixed positions within a crystal lattice, as if solid, while also being able to rotate, as if liquid. Institut Laue-Langevin Communications Office

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Cryobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Exploration Gear & Tech, Icy Worlds, Press Release

Plastic Ice VII – A Component of Ice World Interiors?

by Keith CowingFebruary 22, 2025February 22, 2025

In everyday life, we typically encounter water in one of three familiar states – solid, liquid or gas. But there are in fact many more phases, some of which – […]

NASA’s SPHEREx mission will survey the Milky Way galaxy looking for water ice and other key ingredients for life. In the search for these frozen compounds, the mission will focus on molecular clouds — collections of gas and dust in space — like this one imaged by the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

SPHEREx Space Telescope Will Seek Life’s Ingredients

by Keith CowingFebruary 13, 2025February 13, 2025

Where is all the water that may form oceans on distant planets and moons? The SPHEREx astrophysics mission will search the galaxy and take stock.

Regions surveyed to identify sources likely to present spectra with detectable ice features of H2O, CO, CO2, 13CO2, and other species in the 3 − 5 µm wavelength range where SPHEREx is sensitive. Upper panel: The regions are projected onto a background greyscale image representing the Rowles & Froebrich (2009) extinction map stretched from AV = 0 (white) to 2 mag (black). Solid red lines enclose the fields from which candidate SPHEREx targets have been drawn. Dotted blue lines indicate the boundaries of nearby molecular clouds as defined by Zucker et al. (2019). Red circles indicate the locations and sizes of ‘dark nebulae’ identified on the Palomar plates by Lynds (1962). Lower panel: same symbols as the upper panel, but the background greyscale image is the integrated 12CO(1-0) line intensity survey executed with the CfA 1.2 m telescope and its southern hemisphere counterpart (e.g., Dame et al. 2001; Heyer & Dame 2015). The inverted greyscale stretch ranges from −1 to 25 K km s−1, to indicate the extensive CO survey footprint. The white background indicates regions unobserved by the CfA CO survey except for the Magellanic Clouds (the SMC and LMC maps are described respectively in Rubio et al. (1991) and Cohen et al. (1988)). -- astro-ph.GA

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

The SPHEREx Target List of Ice Sources (SPLICES)

by Keith CowingJanuary 31, 2025January 31, 2025

One of the primary objectives of the SPHEREx mission is to understand the origin of molecules such as H2O, CO2, and other volatile compounds at the early stages of planetary […]

This illustration depicts a lake of water partially filling Mars’ Gale Crater, receiving runoff from snow melting on the crater’s northern rim. Evidence of ancient streams, deltas and lakes that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover mission has found in the patterns of sedimentary deposits in Gale Crater suggests the crater held a lake such as this more than three billion years ago, filling and drying in multiple cycles over tens of millions of years. Larger image

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Signatures of Ice-Free Ancient Ponds and Lakes Found on Mars

by Keith CowingJanuary 27, 2025January 27, 2025

Researchers have discovered two sets of ancient wave ripples on Mars, signatures of long-dried bodies of water preserved in the rock record. Wave ripples are small undulations in the sandy […]

Along the Curiosity traverse [(A), gray line] through the Mirador formation, the rover observed symmetric ripple marks within the Prow outcrop near the base of Mirador butte at elevation −3950 m (B) and the Amapari Marker Band (AMB) outcrop along the west side of Marker Band Valley (MBV) at elevation −3860 m (C). Red stars indicate the locations of the ripple-containing outcrops within the stratigraphic column (D) along the MSL traverse (A). The Prow is one of the multiple lenticular outcrops within the Contigo member. The AMB outcrops are nearly continuously around MBV [(C): solid orange line], often forming flat, erosionally resistant benches (inner edge traced in dashed orange line). The basemap used in (A) to (C) is a Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE mosaic generated by Calef et al. (61, 62) and accessed through the NASA Planetary Data System. -- Science Advances via PubMed

Astrogeology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Icy Worlds, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Mars, Missions & Hardware, Robotics/Rovers/UAVs, Status Report

Wave Ripples Formed In Ancient, Ice-free Lakes In Gale Crater, Mars

by Keith CowingJanuary 23, 2025January 23, 2025

Symmetrical wave ripples identified with NASA’s Curiosity rover in ancient lake deposits at Gale crater provide a key paleoclimate constraint for early Mars: At the time of ripple formation, climate […]

Map of Mars south-polar residual cap, showing depth of water-ice feature in spectral reflectance. Colors go from red (ice free) to blue (deepest water-ice absorption feature). -- PNAS via PubMed

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Mars, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

The Present Epoch May Not Be Representative In Determining The History Of Water On Mars

by Keith CowingJanuary 13, 2025January 12, 2025

Understanding the history of water on Mars is important for understanding both its geological and potential biological history.

Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Habitable Zones, Microbiology & Virology, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

The Role Of Atmospheric Composition In Defining The Habitable Zone Limits And Supporting E. coli Growth

by Keith CowingJanuary 11, 2025January 11, 2025

Studying exoplanet atmospheres is essential for assessing their potential to host liquid water and their capacity to support life (their habitability).

Snapshot of Pluto and Charon during kiss-and-capture. Credit Robert Melikyan and Adeene Denton.

Astrogeology, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Pluto, Press Release

An Origin For Pluto’s Subsurface Ocean?

by Keith CowingJanuary 7, 2025January 7, 2025

Billions of years ago, in the frigid outer reaches of our solar system, two icy worlds collided. Rather than destroying each other in a cosmic catastrophe, they spun together like […]

The spatial coverage of our study of L 1688A, with the underlying extinction map being computed using 2MASS catalog (Cutri et al. 2003) adopting the NICE technique from Lada et al. (1994). The color bar shows the extinction range. The red square encloses the area of the W band observations covering a field of 20′ × 20′ corresponding to a linear scale of 0.8 pc. -- astro-ph.SR

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gaia Mission, Icy Worlds, Interstellar, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Water-Bearing Objects in the Core of the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex

by Keith CowingJanuary 3, 2025January 3, 2025

We present a study of very low-mass stars and brown dwarfs in the rich star-forming core of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. The selection of the sample relies on detecting […]