Tag: water ice
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Is Moon Mining Worth It? Economics, Feasibility, and Future Prospects
Introduction: A New Frontier for Lunar Resources For millennia, humans have looked up at the Moon with wonder. Today, the question extends beyond curiosity: Is Moon mining worth pursuing? The idea hinges on a mix of science, engineering, economics, and policy. While the Moon may host valuable minerals, the costs, technologies, and legal frameworks required…
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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’s Satellites: Unveiling D/H Ratios
New JWST Detections Reveal Deuterium-Enriched Ice on Saturnian Moons The deuterium-to-hydrogen (D/H) ratio in water ice is a key tracer of how and where planetary bodies acquired their water. A recent study using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reports robust spectroscopic detections of the 4.14 μm O-D stretch absorption on mid-sized Saturnian satellites. This…
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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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Equatorial Mars Ice from Volcanoes: Hidden Water Ice
New clues from a planetary climate model A recent modeling study published in Nature Communications proposes an intriguing mechanism for how hydrated ice could accumulate in Mars’ equatorial regions—far from the planet’s well-known polar ice caps. By simulating ancient, explosive volcanic eruptions on early Mars, researchers show that water vapor emitted during eruptions could condense…
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Polarization Comparison: 3I/ATLAS Interstellar Comet vs Distant Solar System Comets
Overview: Polarimetric insights into 3I/ATLAS Recent measurements of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, reported by Z. Gray and colleagues, provide a unique window into the microphysics of dust in an extrasolar environment. By extending the polarimetric phase function over a broad range of phase angles, the study constrains the real part of the refractive index of…
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Polarization Parallels: Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS and Distant Solar System Comets
Overview Recent polarimetric measurements of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, as reported by Z. Gray and colleagues, offer a surprising parallel with distant solar system comets. The analysis indicates that the microphysical properties of dust in the coma of 3I/ATLAS are not demonstrably different from those of far-flung comets within our own solar system. This finding…