Amazing Moons

Image: Our Planet

The moons in our Solar System are some of the most complex places. They offer beauty, elegance, and they can be some of the most hostile places in our Solar System. These moons come in a variety of different shapes, sizes, and they also carry some of the most amazing physical features and natural phenomenon we have ever observed anywhere in the universe. The first stop on our quest to seek amazing moons is Jupiter. Jupiter has 65 moons (51 named) and it is also the largest planet in our solar system. The first big moons discovered around Jupiter were called Galilean moons because the first moons found were discovered by Galileo in 1610. Today, we still discover moons around Jupiter; I am only interested in 2 of these moons: Io and Europa. Io, the volcanic world. With over 400 active volcanoes, Io is the most volcanically active moon in the solar system. Because of Io’s surface, people say that Io looks like a pizza. Io is slightly larger than Earth’s moon and it is the fourth largest moon in the solar system. As stated above, Io has over 400 active volcanoes spewing out materials such as sulfur compounds that give the moon its orangish-yellow color. But scientists did not always know these volcanoes were there. These volcanoes were discovered during the flybys of Voyager spacecraft in 1979 (Trefil, 2014). So how do volcanoes normally erupt? On Earth, according to the Space Atlas, volcanoes erupt because of heat generated by radioactive decay. The scientists realized that the moon Io is simply too small to generate heat in this manner. Io does not revolve around Jupiter in a perfect circle. In fact, the force generated from the gravitational pull of the other moons makes Io’s orbit imperfect. Additionally, the distance the moon is from Jupiter changes as well which means Io is constantly being stretched and distorted (Trefil, 2014). Let’s make a scenario. Take a piece of metal and bend it back and forth multiple times and the center of this piece of metal will begin to heat up. This is how Io generates the heat that gives it brilliant volcanic eruptions. Europa is the next moon on the list. Europa is slightly smaller than Earth’s moon so what makes this moon so special? Europa has liquid water under the surface of the icy crust. Like Io, Europa has an eccentric orbit which bends and distorts the planet keeping the ice under the crust from freezing despite the fact the temperature is -220 degrees Celsius or – 370 degrees F at the surface (Trefil, 2014). To prove that Europa has actual liquid water under the surface there is substantial evidence of freshly frozen water on the surface of Europa due to the upwelling of water (Trefil, 2014). Interestingly enough this brings us to the possibility of life on Europa. Life on Earth resides in deep oceans around deep-sea vents and we expect something similar to that on Europa. Scientists also believe that the collision of particles with Europa’s surface may introduce oxygen into the oceans on Europa (Trefil, 2014). With this theory arises other theories such as the possibilities of complex life, maybe even similar to that of our own fish here on Earth. We now move on, leaving Jupiter and its elegant moons and onward to Saturn “the golden globe”.  Like Jupiter, Saturn has 62 discovered moons so far and only 53 of those have been named. Saturn only has 13 moons over 50 km (30 Miles). There are two moons that orbit Saturn that I am interested in talking about. The first moon, Titan, is very interesting because it is the only moon in our solar system that has a significant atmosphere. Scientists have placed this moon at the center of scientific exploration (Trefil, 2014). Amazingly, Titan is very similar to Earth which we did not find out until the spacecraft Cassini arrived to the planet Saturn in 2004. Cassini dropped a probe named Huygens down to the surface of Titan. The probe sent back the first pictures of the moon’s surface. Surprisingly, the surface of Titan looked almost exactly like the surface of Earth. There are sand dunes near the equator and rocky hills around the surface. There large liquid lakes on the surface as well with one of them being larger than Lake Ontario. These lakes are made of a substance we are familiar with here on our own planet, methane. Methane exists on Earth as a natural gas but on Titan, the lakes are made of liquid methane. It also condenses and raises to the sky and falls back down as methane rain. The clouds on Titan are made of organic hydrocarbons. Because these hydrocarbons exist on Titan, it is interesting to note that these hydrocarbons are close relatives to the kinds of molecules that we believe produced life on Earth (Trefil, 2014). On Titan the hydrocarbons are molecules like methane and ethane that interact with ultraviolet light from the Sun to produce a haze like we would see over Los Angeles. Scientists hope is to study these processes on Titan right now so we can learn about how these same processes happened on Earth 4 billion years ago. The next moon we will talk about is Enceladus. This moon is the sixth largest moon of Saturn. Enceladus seems to be like Jupiter’s moon Io, it is flexed and bent creating an internal heating system. Further investigation led scientists to believe that this moon has a liquid ocean under the icy surface. This information helps us understand how there is a geyser near the south pole of the moon. Enceladus is grouped together with Europa (Jupiter’s moon) as a moon that can possibly support life. Let us now jump past Uranus to Neptune (The Ice Giants).  Neptune has 13 moons but we will only be talking about one of them. Triton is larger than Pluto, in other words, Triton is large enough to be pulled into a spherical shape by its own gravity. Triton also moves in the opposite direction than the planet Neptune’s rotation, this action is called retrograde orbit (Trefil, 2014).  The retrograde orbit suggests that the moon did not form at the same time as the planet, in fact, it suggest that it formed elsewhere in the solar system and was captured by Neptune’s gravitational pull. Triton is actually an object that formed in the Kuiper Belt and Triton is believed to have a rocky core. If you are not amazed yet, consider this, Triton has a temperature of about -233 degrees Celsius which is only 40 degrees above absolute zero. That makes this moon one of the coldest place in the solar system (Trefil, 2014).

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