Saturns

"Are we alone?" It's the age-old question about life in the universe, one that astrobiologists and astronomers around the world are trying to answer.While Earth is the only planet in our solar system that has an abundance of life, astronomers and space agencies are looking in our own backyard for signs that we are not alone. And many believe that the best places to search are the icy moons around two of the biggest planets, Jupiter and Saturn.Currently, there are seven bodies in the outer solar system that are believed to…

This poster shows a flattened (Mercator) projection of the Huygens probe’s view of Saturn’s moon Titan from 10 kilometers altitude. The images that make up this view were taken on Jan. 14, 2005, with the descent imager/spectral radiometer onboard the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe. The Huygens probe was delivered to Titan by the Cassini spacecraft, managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL/University of ArizonaAstrobiologist finds Titan may not have enough amino acids…

Our solar system is full of secrets that are yet to be discovered. While astronomers and space agencies are hard at work studying the universe, the findings from these missions are put under the scanner by researchers to develop possible theories and find whether there is any chance of life existing on these planets if water is present there. Now, researchers have made a disappointing finding. They have reported that Saturn's moon Titan is quite uninhabitable despite being called an ocean moon. Researchers claim that the…

Mimas is the smallest and innermost of Saturn’s major moons. Its newly discovered young ocean opens new avenues for exploring life’s potential beyond Earth. Credit: Frédéric Durillon, Animea Studio | Observatoire de Paris – PSL, IMCCEResearchers have discovered a global ocean of liquid water beneath the surface of Mimas, one of Saturn’s smallest moons. This discovery, made possible by data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, highlights Mimas as a crucial site for studying the origins of life, providing insights into ocean…

Invoking Saturn calls to mind images of the planet's glorious, one-of-a-kind ring system, but that's not all the planet has to offer.Near-Saturnian space is crowded with moons. We've found 156 to date; a population that has made for some strikingly dramatic photos from the Cassini probe that studied Saturn and its satellites from 2004 to 2017.Although Cassini plunged into Saturn's tempestuous atmosphere some years ago now, it left behind an extensive catalog of photographs. Some of the most beautiful are those that…

An odd little moon that orbits closely to Saturn just revealed its biggest mystery: a hidden ocean that lies beneath its heavily cratered surface. 'More People Need to Know About This History': A Black Astronaut Speaks About Race and SpaceMimas is less than 123 miles (198 kilometers) wide, too small to be perfectly round, and its icy shell is covered with deep scarring from objects slamming into it. Its most prominent impact crater, Herschel, stretches across a third of its face, giving it the nickname Death Star in…

New measurements of the orbit of Saturn's smallest major moon suggests there's a big secret lurking beneath its icy crust.Mimas, whose cratered surface bears more than a passing resemblance to the Death Star from Star Wars, only makes sense if there's a liquid ocean swirling around 20 to 30 kilometers (12 to 19 miles) below the ice.The new analysis, led by astronomer Valery Lainey of the Paris Observatory, is the latest in a growing body of evidence of a liquid ocean hiding inside the little moon.That means that Mimas…

To planetary scientists, Mimas—one of Saturn’s moons—is best known for its uncanny resemblance to the Death Star in Star Wars. While Mimas most definitely isn’t a planet-destroying superweapon, nobody could say with any certainty whether an abundance of liquid water was hiding beneath its icy shell. But a new paper, published today in Nature, has called it: That’s no moon; that’s an oceanic world. And this newfound ocean, against all expectations, appears to be a proverbial newborn on the timescale of the solar…

An artist’s rendition of Titan’s landscape features a hazy atmosphere, dark dunes, and mirror-smooth lakes and seas that resemble Earth’s. On these bodies of liquid hydrocarbons, new research suggests that the appearance of “magic islands” may be caused by floating organic solids. Credit: NASA/JPL Saturn’s largest moon rains and snows ethane, methane, and fancier organic compounds. On the ground, accumulated chunks may calve like glaciers at the edges of the moon’s methane lakes, forming ephemeral, floating “magic…

A major scientific breakthrough reveals that amino acids in the ice plumes of Saturn’s moon Enceladus can endure high-speed impacts, enhancing the prospects of finding life beyond Earth. Credit: SciTechDaily.comEnceladus’ ice plumes may hold the building blocks of life.As astrophysics technology and research continue to advance, one question persists: is there life elsewhere in the universe? The Milky Way galaxy alone has hundreds of billions of celestial bodies, but scientists often look for three crucial elements in…