Under the Moons of Mars


"Ganymede's ocean might be organized like a Dagwood sandwich," commented Dr. Steve Vance in a May 1, 2014 statement. Dr. Vance, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, went on to explain the weird moon's resemblance to the Blondie cartoon character's famous multi-layered sandwiches. The study, headed by Dr. Vance, provides new theoretical indications for the team's "club sandwich" model, originally proposed in 2013. The research appears in the journal Planetary and Space Science. Water in its life-sustaining liquid phase exists beyond our own planet, both in our Solar System--and elsewhere. With oceans of water sloshing around on 71% of our own planet's surface, Earth still remains the only planet known to have stable bodies of liquid water. Liquid water is essential for all known life forms on Earth. The existence of water on the surface of Earth is the outcome of its atmospheric pressure and a stable orbit in our Sun;s circumstellar habitable zone. The habitable zone is that Goldilocks region, surrounding a star, where the temperature is not too hot, not too cold, but just right for life sustaining water to exist in its liquid phase. However, the origin of Earth's water still remains unknown. We live in a Cosmic "shooting gallery". Objects inhabiting our Solar System have been profusely and mercilessly blasted by showering asteroids and comets for billions and billions of years. However, planets and large moons have their way of smoothing away the scars--their strong gravity pulls them into a nice ball-like spherical shape. Furthermore, some of these larger spheres possess sufficient internal heat to cause flows of fiery lava and other volcanic features that can fill in the scars of impact craters. A few such large bodies are blasted by strong winds and pouring rains, which also erode away the pockmarks left on their surfaces by showering impactors.