New analyses suggest that the four largest moons of Uranus may hold a reservoir of liquid water beneath their thick crusts, possibly filled with ammonium salts. The heat preserved within these icy moons’ interiors is thought to be enough to melt up to 30 km of the salt and ammonia-rich water ice. Under this sub-glacial ocean, there may even be conditions that are capable of supporting life. Previously, the icy moons of the outer Solar System were considered to be cold, frozen worlds, but now it is understood that several of them have liquid water and possibly life-sustaining conditions beneath their surfaces, including Jupiter’s Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, Saturn’s Enceladus and Titan, and even the distant dwarf planet Pluto and its moon Charon. Julie Castillo-Rogez of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said that “planetary scientists have found evidence of oceans in the most unlikely places, like the dwarf planet Ceres and Pluto and Saturn’s moon Mimas. So there are mechanisms at play here that we don’t yet fully understand.” The four largest Uranus moons – Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon – are now thought to be some of the newest candidates for sub-glacial oceans, holding enough heat to prevent their complete cooling. The analysis suggests that the moons’ crusts may be thick and porous enough to isolate the warmer interior, and the presence of ammonia and other salts would allow the water to remain liquid even at lower temperatures.
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Forscher haben neue Erkenntnisse über die Monde des Planeten Uranus gewonnen. Es besteht die Möglichkeit, dass sich unter der dicken Kruste der vier größten Uranusmonde ein Reservoir aus flüssigem Wasser mit Ammoniumsalzen befindet. Die innere Hitze dieser eisigen Monde könnte ausreichen, um bis zu 30 km aus Salz und Ammoniak-reichem Wassereis zu schmelzen. In diesen subglazialen Ozeanen könnten sogar Lebensbedingungen vorherrschen.
(KI Anmerkung: Flüssiges Wasser und lebensfreundliche Bedingungen unter den Eismonden des äußeren Sonnensystems erweitern unser Verständnis. Wir müssen weiter erforschen!)
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