Tag: Phoebe
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Decoding Deuterium in Saturn’s Ice: JWST Reveals Uniform D/H in Moon Water
Overview: Probing the D/H Ratio in Saturn’s Moon Ice The deuterium-to-hydrogen (D/H) ratio in water ice is a key fingerprint of how water formed and evolved in the early solar system. In giant planet systems, the D/H value can preserve the history of solid materials—ices and pebbles—that coalesced into moons, and it can reflect the…
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Deuterated Water Ice on Saturn Satellites: JWST Reveals Uniform D/H Across Mid-Sized Moons
New JWST Spectroscopy Maps Water Deuteration on Saturn’s Moons In a groundbreaking study, astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) report robust detections of the 4.14 μm O-D stretch in water ice on the mid-sized satellites of Saturn. This spectral feature is analogous to the familiar 3 μm water O-H stretch and serves as…
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JWST Study of CO2 on Saturn’s Satellites Reveals Varieties
Introduction The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is pushing the frontiers of planetary science by analyzing the composition of bodies far from Earth. A new study using JWST spectra investigates carbon dioxide (CO2) on eight mid-sized Saturnian satellites, from the inner moons Mimas, Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, and Rhea to the outer ones Hyperion, Iapetus, and…