"I'm hoping that JWST will be a quite successful, and we'll be able to measure not only satellites of Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, but comets and Kuiper belt objects," Clark said. The more scientists can bracket in the isotopic ratios for other objects throughout the solar system, the clearer the picture should become. That could soon change, as missions such as NASA's Europa Clipper and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launch with the same spectroscopy technology as was used in this research. That implies that it must have formed far out in the solar system backwaters and later been captured by Saturn.īut because scientists don't currently have D/H water measurements for those outer reaches, they cannot say much more than that. The project is named for Galileo Galilei, a pioneering Italian astronomer who used telescopes he designed to observe celestial objects like Jupiter’s moons, lunar craters and Saturn’s rings. At 8.3 times average Earth-oceans levels, its D/H ratio is the highest yet measured in the solar system. Why not just park a spacecraft there to study Saturn and its moons Image to right: Saturns rings only look solid. ![]() The makeup of Saturn's eighth-largest moon, Phoebe, only adds to the mystery. Saturns Rings 07.22.04 In pictures, Saturns rings look a lot like the solar systems largest parking lot - a wide, flat surface almost as wide as the distance between the Earth and Moon. "These all point to a different model for the solar system formation where the water either has a common source, or there was a lot of mixing from inner to outer solar system," Clark said. This ratio also resembles that found in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, which at least one hypothesis holds supplied Earth with water and, possibly, the building blocks of life.Ĭomet Hartley 2 (103P/Hartley) also contains Earthlike D/H ratios. ![]() ![]() "I just find it very intriguing that, if we went to Saturn and scooped up Saturn's rings, it would have the same deuterium-to-hydrogen (D/H) ratio as ocean water," said lead author Roger Clark of the Planetary Science Institute. Oddly, although the D/H ratio should increase with distance from the sun, Saturn's rings and moons sport the same ratio as Earth, which orbits the sun at one-tenth Saturn's distance. In our solar system, scientists can gauge where a planet or moon formed based on the proportion of its water that contains the hydrogen isotope deuterium. The planet’s rings are coy when it comes to revealing their age, but astronomers are getting closer Nola Taylor Redd NASAs Cassini spacecraft captures three of Saturns moonsTethys. The discovery could prompt a reassessment of how the solar system formed and where water originated.įrom chemistry to carbon dating, ratios of isotopes - versions of elements with the same charges but different masses - provide vital clues to the origins of many things. Data from the Cassini probe reveals that the water "fingerprint" of several rings and moons of Saturn is the same as that found on Earth.
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