Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

entered_bubble_50 OP t1_j6u6sy1 wrote

We can possibly add this to the list of moons that appear to have sub surface liquid oceans. So far, it seems there are liquid water oceans on present on Titan, Europa, Enceladus and possibly, Callisto, Ganymede, Triton and now Mimas. Crazy!

484

RogerSmith123456 t1_j6um1c2 wrote

Ganymede is not talked about enough. It possibly has more water than Europa. Certainly more than the earth.

220

daveomatic t1_j6v9696 wrote

Also a magnetosphere. That’s why they call it the breadbasket of the belt 🚀

331

pauloh1998 t1_j6w4g2i wrote

I was just preparared to make a The Expanse reference about Ganymede lol

You beat me bosmang

150

mrflippant t1_j6x214v wrote

Oye beratna, inners never see a ting an' not think to own it!

73

2073521 t1_j6yblze wrote

Who let the skinnies in?

27

jeffroddit t1_j700wwi wrote

/makes silent obscene hand gesture that would be obvious even in a space suit

15

AWizard13 t1_j6vqlie wrote

This might be a really dumb question: if we could gain access to that water, is it usable for earth? Like drinkable? Or is it all salty or mineraly that we can't process?

30

Benjilator t1_j6vt34y wrote

I’m a chemist and I don’t think there’s anything you can’t get out of your water so it should be useable in any case. Every other way of getting water will be cheaper, though.

But basically you can just make pure water out of it and add the minerals in later, pretty sure that’s how a lot of our water is made already for consistency.

63

StygaiAsshai t1_j6vvoco wrote

Maybe in the future we can use that instead of taking water from Earth for space exploration supplies.

23

Benjilator t1_j6weroo wrote

Water is a side product of so many chemical processes that as far as I know there should not be any shortage. Usually water can be fully recycled without worries anyways.

34

John_B_Clarke t1_j6wtuic wrote

Every drop of water on a space station has been carried there by humans in some form or other. And every gram of hydrogen and oxygen that are expended as rocket fuel in interplanetary space is pretty much nonrecoverable.

9

bucolucas t1_j6x2ikw wrote

Read up about fuel cells. They were used on Apollo and the space shuttle.

2

John_B_Clarke t1_j6xqvgy wrote

All the hydrogen and oxygen in those fuel cells was carried into space on top of a Saturn V. And it all burned up when the Service Module reentered. It is no longer available in space. And in any case, Apollo did not go to interplanetary space.

Read up about orbital mechanics.

−4

bucolucas t1_j6xroxz wrote

Orbital mechanics has nothing to do with useful chemical processes that result in water production.

5

John_B_Clarke t1_j6xs5wy wrote

OK, what "useful chemical process" makes water out of hard vacuum.

3

IfIRepliedYouAreDumb t1_j6y1tc4 wrote

Why are you fixated on hard vacuum when Hydrogen and Oxygen are readily available

0

Science-Compliance t1_j6y8lh5 wrote

Because anything you do in space needs to account for the fact that you're floating in a void with essentially nothing around you but radiation. The materials have to come from somewhere, and you need to consider orbital mechanics to get from one body to another in space.

2

IfIRepliedYouAreDumb t1_j6yurh3 wrote

They’re literally not talking about that lol

The conversation is about getting water through chemical processes while mining asteroids

Try and keep up 👍

0

John_B_Clarke t1_j6yysr4 wrote

Only in your mind. This started with the utility of water on Ganymede for space exploration. Nobody said anything about "mining asteroids".

4

Science-Compliance t1_j6z2ro9 wrote

Someone mentioned using Ganymede as a gas station. Try and keep track. 👎

0

IfIRepliedYouAreDumb t1_j6z2ylu wrote

See how clear things are when you re-read things properly?

0

Science-Compliance t1_j6z3txc wrote

You don't have the privileged position to be making such condescending comments, and you still don't seem to understand the context of my and another person's comments. You should work on your own reading comprehension because you still don't seem to get it.

2

IfIRepliedYouAreDumb t1_j6z43cu wrote

Ironic how you’d be better off if you took your own advice huh

But then again your lack of reading skills is why we are here so I don’t have my hopes up 😞

0

Science-Compliance t1_j6z4rso wrote

If you don't understand why Ganymede isn't a good general purpose gas station for space travel to other places in the solar system, then you really need to do a lot more reading than simply in this comment section.

1

IfIRepliedYouAreDumb t1_j6z517c wrote

I honestly don’t know if you realize how funny you are XD and that makes it 10x funnier

Keep being yourself I’ll read your comments when I need a laugh 😂

0

uglyspacepig t1_j6y5qas wrote

Fuel cells generate electricity. They're not used for propulsion.

1

John_B_Clarke t1_j6yyaec wrote

Doesn't matter what they were used for, they didn't magically produce water from vacuum. The hydrogen and oxygen were carried from Earth on the spacecraft.

0

uglyspacepig t1_j702ggw wrote

You're very confused. You're attacking points no one made and going off on tangents that are not relevant

2

uglyspacepig t1_j6y64s4 wrote

Largely irrelevant. Any small body we decide to visit out past Mars has huge deposits of either hydrated minerals, ice, or has other compounds that can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen.

2

TheMurku t1_j6w7qxy wrote

Why would we need to ship it?

Hydrogen + Carbon Dioxide put through the Sabatier process produce Water and Methane.

7

StygaiAsshai t1_j6xpo5v wrote

Im talking about just going to the moons as gas stations.

1

TheMurku t1_j6xqcld wrote

'supplies' made me think you were referring to Life Support.

Apologies.

Seeing 'getting to orbit is halfway to anywhere' in Solar System terms what you suggest is absolutely the goal. It's called 'in-situ resource utilization', or ISRU. Water as a Reaction Mass (either as itself in NTRS or as a source of hydrogen) is the core material ISRU will seek.

3

danielravennest t1_j6xzv3i wrote

ISRU is NASA's obfuscation of "space mining", because it would confuse congresspeople who come from mining states. Actual mining engerineers just call it space mining.

1

Benjilator t1_j6werwb wrote

Water is a side product of so many chemical processes that as far as I know there should not be any shortage. Usually water can be fully recycled without worries anyways.

6

danielravennest t1_j6xy7x2 wrote

There's plenty of water already in space. Some nearby asteroid types contain up to 20% water and carbon compounds. The carbon compounds typically have hydrogen, and that can be combined with mineral oxides (most rocks) to make more water.

Beyond the "frost line" in the middle of the asteroid belt, water can survive in a low-g vacuum environment, so there is lots and lots of water as water and ice.

Besides, most rocket launches produce more water than they can carry as payload. They take oxygen from the air and burn it with hydrocarbons. The exhaust is CO2 and water.

3

Science-Compliance t1_j6y9u19 wrote

The exhaust from a rocket is basically unusable as a source of water for astronauts. Every drop of water you take from the exhaust, too, would be reducing the rocket's efficiency. In order for that rocket to work, you need all those combustion products to fly out the back of the nozzle at high speed. Anything you put in the exhaust stream that is attached to the ship is going to reduce the effective thrust of the rocket (assuming it doesn't just melt first). You'd be better off just already having a water storage tank on the spacecraft, but then we get back to the original problem.

1

danielravennest t1_j6yc2bv wrote

I was responding to the "taking water from Earth" part of the previous comment. The exhaust from a rocket launch to orbit stays in the atmosphere.

(I've done space systems engineering for 45 years now, so I do understand how rockets work).

1

Science-Compliance t1_j6z398j wrote

I think it was kind of unclear how you meant that last paragraph in the context of the broader discussion, but clarification noted.

2

Science-Compliance t1_j6y84mi wrote

There's no water you can't purify. The question is, how much energy is it going to take to do that?

4

TheAuthentic t1_j6y06uu wrote

We actually can desalinate ocean water on earth, it’s just expensive currently.

3

AWizard13 t1_j75fuxx wrote

I know! I do know that it takes a lot of energy and money to do, though.

I was wondering if like this water is composed differently and had a bunch of different stuff in it, would we be able to use it.

Or if it's not h2o and something completely different.

1

DidItSave t1_j71skm2 wrote

For one of the research papers I was doing for my class, I came across a journal article that suggested if Ganymede gets affected by planetary migration, with tidal heating from Jupiter and radiation from the Sun, the subsurface water on Ganymede would make its way to the surface through geysers and cryovolcanoes. Combined with the magnetosphere, an atmosphere could form, eventually starting a hydrological cycle similar to that on Earth and Titan.

3

RogerSmith123456 t1_j723acz wrote

Very interesting. Similar to what we see on Triton, Neptune’s planet. Although the key difference is that it isn’t water coming out of those geysers. Thanks for sharing.

2

weathercat4 t1_j6u7esd wrote

Titan is hydrocarbon oceans.

66

deadmosco t1_j6ur8i0 wrote

The hydrocarbon oceans are on top of the ice, which is in top of liquid water.

57

PresentAd3536 t1_j6u7xlu wrote

Which could very likely harbor life. Earth's primordial oceans also had vast amounts of methane.

36

Blazin_Rathalos t1_j6ubmrl wrote

That's methane gas dissolved in water, Titan's "Oceans" are pure liquid hydrocarbons that are liquid because of the incredibly low temperature. Those two are not comparable at all.

70

isleepinahammock t1_j6vuulr wrote

Titan's surface seas actually interest me a lot more than the water oceans of the ice shell moons. This is for a couple of reasons. First, they're a lot more accessible. You don't need a probe capable enough to land, drill/melt through miles of ice, etc. You can plop down directly in them from space and start exploring. They're exposed directly to the atmosphere.

But that's not the real reason I'm interested in Titan's hydrocarbon seas. People have come up with speculative models for life that could actually exist in this environment. I'm not talking about microbes hiding out in the liquid water mantle of Titan, I'm talking exotic life that actually uses methane or ethane as its solvent, as Earth life uses water. Biologists have proposed models for such life forms and how their biochemistry could work.

Why is this so interesting? For one, it would just be a really neat discovery; it would prove that our type of life isn't the only type of life possible. But it goes much deeper than that.

Let's say we find some microbes in the waters of Europa or hiding in a briny aquifer in Mars. That would be a neat discovery, but we'll quickly run into a problem; how do we know that this life truly represents a second case of abiogenesis? In other words, how do we know that the microbes or other life we find is actually a truly unique instance of life? If panspermia is in play, then it's entirely possible that life originated on Earth and then was transferred to the other bodies in the Solar System. Or, life could have originated somewhere else and been transferred here. We have examples of Martian meteorites on Earth; we know that the various planets have all contaminated each other with some of their surface rocks. It's hotly debated whether microbes or their more durable spores could survive being launched into space by an asteroid, drifting for years in the vacuum, and then survive crashing onto another planet or moon. But the important part is that is a possibility. It's by no means proven, but it's not an unreasonable hypothesis.

If we find these microbes on Mars, biologists will immediately try to sequence their genomes and see if there is a common ancestor with Earth life. But the big problem is that ambiguity will still exist. We can't for sure know what kind of microbes existed on the early Earth. Even if the life we find seems to be evolutionarily distinct from Earth life, there will always be a possibility that the microbes we find are simply descended from a now-extinct branch of Earth life. Especially if it largely uses the same chemical elements as Earth life, whether such life is truly a second genesis will remain ambiguous. Biologists will debate the topic for generations, arguing for this reason or that reason why Earth life and Mars life do or do not have a common ancestor. We may never get a firm answer.

And this answer matters because what I'm ultimately most curious about is how common life is in the universe. If life on Mars and Earth share a common ancestor, we just go from only knowing that one planet has life to only knowing that one solar system has life. We could just be from one freakishly lucky solar system that happened to have an abiogenesis event, and almost every star in the sky is orbited by completely dead worlds. However, if we had clear evidence that two genesis events happened in one solar system, it would mean life is everywhere. Life cannot be incredibly rare if there are two independent occurrences of it in just our star system.

And that's where the potential of Titan's seas really shines. It may be possible for life to exist in Titan's seas, but it would have to be, from the molecular level up, constructed completely differently from every life form on Earth. I've heard it eloquently describe that, "such life would be as different from us as a stone fish is from a stone." There is zero chance that a microbe that uses methane or ethane as a solvent and can only exist at temperatures cold enough for liquid methane will share any ancestry with Earth life. The discovery of a single microbe in Titan's seas would represent an undeniable, completely unambiguous example of a second abiogenesis event. In an instant, we would know that life is absolutely everywhere in the universe.

I see life in Titan's seas as the hail Mary play of astrobiology. Though we have some conjectural models for how such life might work, we have no way of knowing if such life is truly even possible. No one has managed to assemble such a microbe in a lab. So it's a huge gamble whether such life exists. But if it does, it would provide unambiguous proof that life is everywhere in the universe. It's the ultimate high risk/high reward gamble.

70

John_B_Clarke t1_j6wu8jk wrote

Many people make the assumption that DNA is the only possible carrier for a genetic code. If whatever life we find on Mars or Titan or elsewhere has a different molecule as the basis for its genetic code that would be pretty strong evidence that it didn't originate on Earth.

16

StrangeTangerine1525 t1_j73tj9b wrote

Life on Europa and/or Enceladus was likely a second abiogenesis, the distances are just too vast for life to be seeded, even Mars there is something like a 1/10,000 chance if I remember, all three are just too far away, and either way, there is a pretty decent chance would be able to tell if the life we found came from Earth, with chirality and stuff like that.

1

alvinofdiaspar t1_j6uckgw wrote

The underground oceans might also be some kind of eutectic - say water and ammonia. It lowers the melting point to such an extent that it stays liquid at temperatures that would otherwise freeze water.

36

ruetoesoftodney t1_j6wclg5 wrote

Just fyi with liquids it's commonly called an azeotrope, not a eutectic (which is for solids despite them being the same thing in two different phases).

Primarily different terms because it's different branches of engineering that deal with the two.

8

beaucephus t1_j6ucgtm wrote

On Titan the "rocks" and mountains are made of mostly water ice. It could mean that Titan has water "magma" at depth with dissolved hydrocarbons. There are lots of possibilities, but of course, all speculation.

27

VoraciousTrees t1_j6ukfdc wrote

So... oil?

6

uglyspacepig t1_j6y6oi1 wrote

"Hydrocarbons" encompasses a huge number of compounds that includes crude oil.

2

uglyspacepig t1_j6y5df9 wrote

I'm not sure Callisto belongs on that list. It's largely undifferentiated and not likely to have large pockets of water, let alone an entire ocean. But it's been a while since I've read anything new about it that assessment could have changed.

2

TacoMonger25 t1_j709o6h wrote

I think we just lucked out with our solar system. Liquid water seems abundant in our solar system the further we look. Earth is just at the right place to cook it enough to produce life!

1