Death of Nathan Walker Astronaut


Jupiter, along with its beautiful ringed sister planet, Saturn, are the gas-giant duo of our Sun's family of eight major planets. The other two giant planets--that dwell in our Solar System's outer limits--are Uranus and Neptune. Uranus and Neptune are classified as ice giants, because they carry within them larger cores than Jupiter and Saturn, as well as thinner gaseous envelopes. Jupiter and Saturn may (or may not) contain small, hidden cores, that are heavily veiled by extremely massive, dense gaseous envelopes. Several possibilities could provide an answer as to why the moon would have charcoal-black surface patches, even though it is circling a dwarf planet that is as bright as freshly fallen snow. One theory that has been suggested proposes that, unlike larger objects such as Makemake, its own little companion moon is so small that it cannot gravitationally keep a grip onto a bright and icy crust, which then sublimates, undergoing a sea-change from solid to gas under the melting influence of warming sunlight. This would make the little moon akin to comets and other KBOs, many of which are well-coated with very dark material. The findings of the two missions are presented in papers published on April 13, 2017, by planetary scientists with NASA's Cassini mission to Saturn and the venerable Hubble Space Telescope (HST). In one of the papers, Cassini scientists announced their discovery that a form of chemical energy life can feed on appears to exist on Enceladus. In the second paper, HST researchers report additional evidence of plumes erupting from Jupiter's moon, Europa, whose fascinating frozen crust of ice resembles a cracked eggshell. It has long been recognized by planetary scientists that beneath Europa's bizarre cracked shell of ice, there is a sloshing global ocean of liquid water.