Photo Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute/Alex Parker.

Who loves Pluto?

“Ice on Earth is a cosmological curiosity due to our warm temperatures,” said Dr. Christoph Salzmann.

“I think that our novel approach in this study successfully opened a new avenue for long-term and multiband monitoring of solar system bodies,” said Dr. Gaku Nishiyama.

Dr. Masaaki Miyahara: "This finding challenges the notion that Ryugu is compositionally uniform and opens new questions about the complexity of primitive asteroids.”

Dr. Andreas Quirrenbach: “Since M-dwarfs are very common and radiate their energy constantly into space over billions of years, they could provide stable environments for the development of life.”

Image Credits:.(1) NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill.(2) NASA/JPL/USGS.(3) NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben.

. it a key target for astrobiologists. NASA's upcoming Dragonfly mission, set to launch in 2028, aims to learn more about Titan’s habitability potential. (3/3)

. by rivers, lakes, and seas of liquid hydrocarbons like methane and ethane. Even further down and beneath its surface is hypothesized to harbor a subsurface ocean of liquid water. Titan’s Earth-like weather patterns and potential for prebiotic chemistry make. (2/3)

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is the second-largest moon in the solar system and the only planetary body aside from Earth to have a dense atmosphere and is primarily composed of nitrogen and traces of methane. Beneath its thick orange haze is a surface sculpted. (1/3)

. that might support life. NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, which is currently en route to Europa, aims to explore and assess Europa’s potential habitability. (3/3). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Evidence from NASA's Galileo spacecraft suggests that this ocean may contain more than twice the water of all Earth’s oceans while containing a rocky seafloor, raising the possibility of hydrothermal activity—an energy source. (2/3). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Michael Carroll

Jupiter’s moon, Europa, is a prime astrobiology candidate in our solar system. Roughly the size of Earth’s moon, Europa is covered in a shell of ice that scientists hypothesize has a global subsurface ocean of liquid water. (1/3) . Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill

“The rankings of the flybys we present are based on our best present-day understanding of Europa, which is largely based on Galileo data,” the study notes.

“The very existence of these beads tells us the moon had explosive eruptions, something like the fire fountains you can see in Hawaii today,” said Dr. Ryan Ogliore.