On July 24, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reported evidence of a liquid ocean buried under Uranus’s moon Ariel’s surface, supplying CO2 to the world above.
- The discovery could supply an answer to a mystery surrounding this Uranian moon that has perplexed scientists: the fact Ariel’s surface is covered with a significant amount of carbon dioxide ice.
- This is surprising because at the distance Uranus and its moons exist from the sun, 20 times further out from the sun than Earth, carbon dioxide turns to gas and is lost to space.
- This means some process must refresh the carbon dioxide at the surface of Ariel.
- New evidence from the JWST suggests the source of this carbon dioxide could come not from outside Ariel but from its interior, possibly from a buried subsurface ocean.
