Latest Tidal acceleration Stories
A bulge of elevated topography on the farside of the moon--known as the lunar farside highlands--has defied explanation for decades. But a new study led by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows that the highlands may be the result of tidal forces acting early in the moon's history when its solid outer crust floated on an ocean of liquid rock.Ian Garrick-Bethell, an assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz, found that the shape of the moon's...
Saturn's icy moon Enceladus should not be one of the most promising places in our solar system to look for extraterrestrial life. Instead, it should have frozen solid billions of years ago. Located in the frigid outer solar system, it's too far from the sun to have oceans of liquid water -- a necessary ingredient for known forms of life -- on its surface.Some worlds, like Mars or Jupiter's moon Europa, give hints that they might harbor liquid water beneath their surfaces. Mars is about 4,200...
Could microbial life exist inside Enceladus, where no sunlight reaches, photosynthesis is impossible and no oxygen is available? To answer that question, we need look no farther than our own planet to find examples of the types of exotic ecosystems that could make life possible on Saturn's geyser moon. The answer appears to be, yes, it could be possible. It is this tantalizing potential that brings us back to Enceladus for further study.In recent years, life forms have been found on Earth...
Latest Tidal acceleration Reference Libraries
Planet Triton -- Triton is the planet Neptune's largest moon, discovered by William Lassell in 1846 just 17 days after the planet itself was discovered. It is named after Triton, from Greek mythology. Triton is unique among all large moons in the solar system for its retrograde orbit around the planet (i.e., it orbits in a direction opposite to the planet's rotation). Jupiter's moons Ananke, Carme, Pasiphae and Sinope and Saturn's moon Phoebe also orbit retrograde, but all of them...
Jupiter's Moon Europa -- Europa is a puzzle. The sixth largest moon in our Solar System, Europa confounds and intrigues scientists. Few bodies in the Solar System have attracted as much scientific attention as this moon of Jupiter because of its possible subsurface ocean of water. The more we learn about this icy moon, the more questions we have. Because the nature of science is to ask questions, we cannot resist the mystery of Europa and its potential for possessing an ocean. Early...
