Cold, and then Some

Up until a couple of days ago we were shivering under some pretty cold temps up here in New England. The other night we took the trash out and it was about 10 below zero (F)—cold enough to literally take your breath away. The sky was quite clear that night, and the stars were stunningly beautiful. Mars was like a red beacon…The next day I walked out to get the mail and noticed the ice in the driveway. It reminded me of pictures I’d seen of ice fields on the worlds of the outer solar system. Out there ice doesn’t so much melt off the surfaces of those worlds, but it sublimates—it turns from ice crystals into a gas without going through that pesky liquid phase we see here on Earth.

Oh, there is liquid water out there at the outer worlds. At least, that’s the working hypothesis deduced from various observations. And, how else do you explain what looks like deposits of fresh ice that have somehow oozed up through cracks on the surfaces of places like Enceladus, Europa and Pluto’s moon Charon? It’s only a matter of time before the existence of all those cold oceans are confirmed. And, when I read about them, I can certainly sympathize with the idea of cold—especially after the bitterly cold weather we had last week. However, I am reminded that 10 below zero here on Earth would be a pretty warm day on Mars or Enceladus or Tethys or Pluto or Charon— so we have it pretty good here at home.

Speaking of cold and ice and outer solar system, here’s the latest installment of my ongoing vodcast series. It features an observation made at Gemini Observatory that I wrote about a few months ago, and an image I worked on with the PR folks at Gemini. Come on—let’s go visit some ice worlds!

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