Water Archives

Observable signatures and freezing characteristics for the 1 km thick reservoir located 1 km deep below Europa’s surface. -- Nature

Astrogeology, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Cryobiology, Europa, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Identifying Signatures Of Past And Present Cryovolcanism On Europa

by Keith CowingApril 4, 2025April 4, 2025

Europa, the most visibly active icy moon of Jupiter, is a prime target for the search for life in the outer solar system.

Scattered-light images of our generic model at two different inclinations (grazing angle and edge-on). Images at 3.0 µm are shown with a logarithmic color scale. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

The Role Of Absorption And Scattering In Shaping Ice Bands. Spatially-resolved Spectroscopy Of Protoplanetary Disks

by Keith CowingMarch 30, 2025March 30, 2025

The James Webb Space Telescope now enables the spectral study of ices with unprecedented sensitivity and angular resolution. Water ice plays a crucial role in the growth of grains and […]

Schematic diagram of the MGCM coupled with the regolith model. This model is called MIRAI (Mars climate model with water Interaction between the Regolith, Atmosphere, and pore Ice).

Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Mars, Press Release

Adsorptive Regolith On Mars Soaks Up Water

by Keith CowingMarch 12, 2025

Mars, the next frontier in space exploration, still poses many questions for scientists. The planet was once more hospitable, characterized by a warm and wet climate with liquid oceans. But […]

a,b, The 13 M⊙ CC supernova in the 1.1 × 106 M⊙ halo 1.2 Myr after the explosion (a) and the 200 M⊙ PI supernova in the 2.2 × 107 M⊙ halo 0.7 Myr after the explosion (b) (images are 1 kpc on a side). The relic H ii regions of the stars are visible as the 2,000–10,000 K gas, and the CC and PI ejecta are visible as the 104 and 105 K shocked gas with radii of ~50 and 100 pc, respectively. At the end of the simulations, both supernova remnants are still trapped within their respective H ii regions. -- Nature

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Stellar Cartography

Abundant Water From Primordial Supernovae At Cosmic Dawn

by Keith CowingMarch 5, 2025March 5, 2025

Primordial (or population III) supernovae were the first nucleosynthetic engines in the Universe, and they forged the heavy elements required for the later formation of planets and life. Water, in […]

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 […]