All articles tagged with #plumes
Io, Jupiter’s volcanically active moon with roughly 400 volcanoes and plumes hundreds of kilometres high, was first revealed by Voyager 1 in 1979 and is now understood to be powered by tidal heating that fuels local magma sources, continually resurfacing Io and feeding material into Jupiter’s magnetosphere.
New computer modeling of Greenland’s ice sheet suggests deep plume-like structures arise from thermal convection—a heat-driven, slow churning process that may make some ice softer than previously thought. While this explains the plumes, researchers caution softer ice alone doesn’t automatically mean faster melt or higher sea-level rise, and further studies are needed to understand the full implications for the ice sheet’s mass balance and coastal impacts.
Saturn's moon Enceladus has the potential for extraterrestrial life due to the salty ocean located under the thick icy crust. The James Webb Space Telescope recently recorded a 10,000-kilometer-long plume of water vapor spraying from the surface, the largest spray recorded from Enceladus. Organic molecules such as methane, formaldehyde, and hydrogen have been observed in these plumes, which are molecules that could provide energy for microbes. The Enceladus OrbiLander, a proposed NASA space mission, would orbit Enceladus and land on the moon to collect data.
Saturn's moon Enceladus has the potential for extraterrestrial life due to the salty ocean located under the thick icy crust. The James Webb Space Telescope recently recorded a 10,000-kilometer-long plume of water vapor spraying from the surface, the largest spray recorded from Enceladus. Organic molecules such as methane, formaldehyde, and hydrogen have been observed in these plumes, which are molecules that could provide energy for microbes. The Enceladus OrbiLander, a proposed NASA space mission, could provide more data on this icy Saturn moon.
The James Webb Space Telescope has captured an image of the largest plume of water vapor erupting from geysers on Enceladus, Saturn's ice-covered ocean moon. The eruption measured at least 10,000 kilometers (over 6,000 miles) out into space, around 20 times the size of Enceladus itself. The plumes supply material to Saturn's icy rings, and the team detected something that could be cyanide compounds on the surface of Enceladus. The research has been accepted into Nature Astronomy, and a preprint is available via the NASA website.