Some of these asteroids even have a completely larger volume of water than our Earth, despite their much smaller size.
Nearly two years ago, NASA discovered a giant water column reaching 200 km high on the moon of Jupiter, Europe. And in the past, scientists have continually found new evidence that this asteroid hides an ocean of salt water no different from that on our Earth.
To describe this mysterious ocean, the expression “vast” is probably still too modest. Simply put, all the natural water in rivers, lakes, seas and even rain and clouds on Earth is only about half the volume of Europe’s underground ocean.
In particular, the size of Europe is only equivalent to the size of the Earth’s moon, which means that the area of this planet is less than 1/10 of the surface of the globe.
Scientists discovered giant water columns on the moon Europa two years ago.
In addition, scientists also believe that there is alien life on the moon Europa or any planet in the solar system with oceans, such as Enceladus, Pluto, Titan, or Ganymede. The images below will help you compare the volume of water between Earth and some other planets where alien creatures may exist.
Note: The unit used in these images is the zettaliter (ZL). 1 ZL is equivalent to 1 billion cubic kilometers. Our Earth currently contains about 1355 zł of water.
Enceladus – Earth
Enceladus is a fairly small natural satellite of Saturn about 506 km in diameter with an area equal to the state of Arizona in the United States. In 2014, NASA’s Cassini reconnaissance ship discovered a column of water rising from the planet with a vast underground ocean.
Trition is a moon of Neptune, about 4 billion km from Earth. In 2017, Voyager 2 became the only spacecraft to fly over and take photos of the planet. Scientists describe Trition as a cold volcano that sprays columns of water and ammonia gas.
Dione – Earth
Dione is also a Saturn-like moon like Enceladus and confirmed for the existence of the ocean in 2016.
Pluto – Earth
Pluto is one of the most controversial asteroids in size for scientists. Ultimately, astronomers agreed to view Pluto as an asteroid and not a planet as it once was. In 2016, NASA’s New Horizons ship confirmed the existence of seawater and ammonia gas on the asteroid.
Europa – Earth
Europa is the smallest of Jupiter’s famous Galilean quartet. As mentioned above, Europe is roughly the size of the Earth’s moon but contains enormous amounts of seawater mixed with sulfur from the neighboring moon IO.
Callisto – Earth
Callisto is the second largest of the 4 Galilean moons with its surface covered in ice and almost certainly contains an underground ocean within. However, since the ice sheet is over 200 km thick, scientists have not been able to pinpoint this information.
Titan – Earth
Titan is Saturn’s largest moon and the second largest moon in our solar system. Scientists often call Titan the “primitive Earth” and believe that there is an underground ocean hidden under ice nearly 100 km thick on the surface of the planet.
Ganymede – Earth
Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system and also belongs to the Galilean quartet. The volume of water on this planet is 18 times greater than that of our Earth.
Earth is quite large, but it turns out it has less water than some of the moons in our solar system.
