Water is a necessity for life as we know it. Every living thing on Earth consumes water to stay hydrated and survive. Water also provides opportunities for exploration, whether it is taking to the oceans to discover a new bit of land or diving into the depths below, where many mysteries remain unanswered. Astrobiologists now want to up the ante and explore the oceans of other worlds millions of miles – or possibly even light-years – away in order to find signs of alien life.
How worlds end up having global oceans, either visible on the surface or buried underneath an icy exterior, is a story in itself. Water does not float through space as liquid droplets waiting to splash down on a surface. As space is so cold, water travels through space as grains of ice. As new planetary systems begin to form around a young star, water can stay as these icy grains beyond a certain radius, known as the ‘ice line’.
This story is from the Issue 109 edition of All About Space.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the Issue 109 edition of All About Space.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
"We knew that this would be a historic comet"
Astronomer David Levy was immortalised for his co-discovery of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 – its impact with Jupiter 29 years ago held the world in awe
MOON TOUR - COPERNICUS
Get up close to the ‘Monarch of the Moon’
A HUNGRY BLACK HOLE 'SWITCHES ON' AS ASTRONOMERS WATCH IN SURPRISE
J221951 is one of the most extreme examples yet
MARS HELICOPTER PHONES HOME AFTER A 63-DAY SILENCE
Rugged terrain had kept Ingenuity from communicating with its robotic partner, the Perseverance rover
SIX OF THE BEST SPACE PRANKS
It turns out that the sky isn’t the limit when it comes to a good old-fashioned practical joke
TIME APPEARED TO MOVE FIVE TIMES SLOWER IN THE FIRST BILLION YEARS AFTER THE BIG BANG
Time dilation, brought about by the relativistic expansion of space, has resulted in the observed slowing of ‘clocks’ in the early universe
COSMIC 'SANDWICH' THEORY COULD EXPLAIN HOW SMALLER PLANETS ARE FORMED
Sandwiched planet formation may arise as the result of gas and dust being squeezed between large planets
OBJECT HOTTER THAN THE SUN FOUND ORBITING A DISTANT STAR AT BREAKNECK SPEED
A weird celestial object that’s blurring the line between planet and star has been uncovered
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE MILKY WAY
The Milky Way is our home galaxy – a vast star factory with a monstrous black hole at its heart. Join our tour of the cosmic pinwheel that’s home to every star we can see in the night sky
MANNED MISSION TO AN ASTEROID
NASA plans to send manned expeditions to near-Earth asteroids in order to discover more about their formation and structure