Water Lust: Why All the Excitement When H2O Is Found in Space?
When NASA announced last month the finding of water ice in several impact craters on Mars , and either water or hydroxyl widely dispersed on the moon 's surface, the solar system became a little more familiar because it seemed a tad more hospitable to life as we know it on Earth. But is that because the rest of the cosmos has much in common with Earth or vice versa? Water, the unique molecule that cradles and nurtures life here, is apparently common and perhaps abundant in the solar system. Observational evidence suggests that water as a solid, liquid or gas is present at the poles of Mercury, within the thick clouds of Venus, on Mars, inside asteroids and comets, and in the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Scientists also have speculated that Jupiter's moons Europa , Ganymede and Callisto have vast subsurface oceans of...