Unraveling The Mysteries Of Icy Ocean Worlds Could Help Us Understand If Life Inhabits Them
Groundbreaking research unveiled by a professor at Texas A&M University could transform our knowledge of icy ocean worlds throughout the solar system.
The new study introduces a thermodynamic concept called the “cenotectic.” The name is derived from the Greek word that translates to “universal-melt.”
It investigates the stability of liquids under extreme conditions, which may provide insights into the habitability of icy moons like Jupiter’s Europa.
The examination of icy ocean worlds marks a fresh, exciting chapter in planetary science, with a focus on determining whether these environments could support life.
In the study, co-authored by Dr. Matt Powell-Palm, and planetary scientist Dr. Baptiste Journaux from the University of Washington, explore what conditions allow liquid water to remain stable on these faraway, frozen planetary bodies.
The cenotectic refers to the lowest possible temperature at which a liquid can stay stable at under varying pressures and concentrations.
By measuring and defining the cenotectic, the team provided another way of analyzing data from planetary exploration missions.
Powell-Palm and Journaux combined their expertise in cryobiology, planetary science, and high-pressure water-ice systems to conduct their investigations.
“With the launch of NASA Europa Clipper, the largest planetary exploration mission ever launched, we are entering a multi-decade era of exploration of cold and icy ocean worlds. Measurements from this and other missions will tell us how deep the ocean is and its composition,” Journaux said.
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“Laboratory measurements of liquid stability, and notably the lowest temperature possible (the newly-defined cenotectic), combined with mission results, will allow us to fully constrain how habitable the cold and deep oceans of our solar system are, and also what their final fate will be when the moons or planets have cooled down entirely.”
Their measurements provided several major insights into the evolution of aqueous systems with pressure. They discovered that the cenotectic plays a significant role in the “endgame” of planetary oceans.
Over time, large planetary bodies rich with water will cool as their internal heat becomes lost due to tidal dissipation or radiogenic heating.
As a result, their liquid oceans will gradually freeze from top to bottom until they are completely solid. This effect can be seen in large icy moons like Ganymede, Callisto, and Titan, as well as cold ocean exoplanets like Trappist.
As our understanding of the solar system continues to grow with the launch of more space exploration missions, researchers all over the world will work on analyzing the data these missions will deliver.
By combining experimental studies, scientists hope to unravel the mysteries of cold, oceanic worlds and assess their potential to support life.
Further research into the composition and density of aqueous systems is required to gain more information.
The details of the full study were published in the journal Nature Communications.
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