10-06-2024, 04:30 PM
https://www.space.com/uranus-moon-mission-habitability
Over the last couple of years, planetary scientists have been increasingly calling for a mission to a largely unexplored region of the solar system: Uranus and its moons.
Planetary scientists know that some of Jupiter's and Saturn's moons likely possess subsurface liquid-water oceans. These "ocean worlds," such as the Jovian moon Europa and the Saturnian moon Enceladus, are not in the "Goldilocks zone" — the optimal distance from a star where liquid water can exist on a world's surface — that was previously thought to be a requirement for habitability.
Instead, researchers have been considering the possibility that life could eke out an existence inside these bodies, suspended in internal oceans heated through various mechanisms. These hypothetical life-forms might utilize chemical metabolic pathways similar to those used by life on Earth's ocean floor.
Well, if Jupiter's and Saturn's moons could potentially support life (due to tidal heating keeping the temperature up), then I suppose there's no reason why Uranus's couldn't!
Of course, it'd take several years for any probe to reach Uranus, so we'd be waiting for a while - but, hopefully, we'll get such a mission one day, and it'll find something promising
.
Over the last couple of years, planetary scientists have been increasingly calling for a mission to a largely unexplored region of the solar system: Uranus and its moons.
Planetary scientists know that some of Jupiter's and Saturn's moons likely possess subsurface liquid-water oceans. These "ocean worlds," such as the Jovian moon Europa and the Saturnian moon Enceladus, are not in the "Goldilocks zone" — the optimal distance from a star where liquid water can exist on a world's surface — that was previously thought to be a requirement for habitability.
Instead, researchers have been considering the possibility that life could eke out an existence inside these bodies, suspended in internal oceans heated through various mechanisms. These hypothetical life-forms might utilize chemical metabolic pathways similar to those used by life on Earth's ocean floor.
Well, if Jupiter's and Saturn's moons could potentially support life (due to tidal heating keeping the temperature up), then I suppose there's no reason why Uranus's couldn't!
Of course, it'd take several years for any probe to reach Uranus, so we'd be waiting for a while - but, hopefully, we'll get such a mission one day, and it'll find something promising
.
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