Science Sunday: Jupiter's Moon Houses Salty Ocean

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have found that Ganymede, Jupiter's moon, has a salt ocean with more water than the Earth. Scientists believe the ocean is 60 miles thick, which is about 10 times the depth of Earth's oceans. If this doesn't get Jules Verne-ians excited, I don't know what will. In addition to pictures of the moon from Hubble, scientists have measure the magnetic field of the moon, which provides even stronger evidence of such a body of water underneath the surface potentially caused by Cryo-Volcanoes. What's more,scientists are looking beyond Ganymede to Europa and Callisto as other icy moons with likely sources of water and, thus, the potential for life whether past or present.

But why, Trevor? Why should I care? This means that our solar system is a wet place, where oceans and salt water are not confined to Earth, but rather, exist in abundance. If there are oceans on moons as well as Earth here in the Sol System, then it can be extrapolated that there are oceans on planets outside of our solar system. Generally, life as we know it requires water to survive. Going further, this could mean life on other planets or moons outside of our solar system.

In my opinion we would be silly to believe there is not life somewhere else in the universe, whether it exists presently, or at some point in the past or will exist at some time in the future. Astronomers estimate that there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the universe and our own galaxy, The Milky Way, is home to over 300 billion stars. Now, math is not my strong suit, but even I know that the odds are against being alone in the universe.

What do you think? Are we alone? Or are there super-intelligent plant-people out there somewhere? Leave a response in the space below, the wackier the better.

Don't forget to download a free copy of my Sci-Fi Thriller Symbiote, which deals with one possible form of life arriving on Earth via meteorite.

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