Other Oceans in Our Solar System

There is a exciting new prospect of new oceans in the solar system. Three of Jupiter's moons are now suspected to have considerable oceans beneath their crusts. On all three of these moons there are signs of different types of salt minerals, which would indicate exposure to salty water near or close to the surface. They were able to come to this conclusion by studying the infrared spectrometer readings from Galileo. Some of these hydrated salt minerals are thought to be caused by brine making its way up to the surface from vents or sorts of eruptions. To back up that hypothesis, new high resolution pictures sent back by Galileo show that water or a sort of slushy soft ice has surfaced through the fractured crust of Ganymede. This water or ice that has surfaced has created smooth new areas on the face of Ganymede.

Callisto, unlike Europa and Ganymede, was though to have an ocean before the spacecraft Galileo set sail into outer space. In the 90s, a large asteroid collided with Callisto, however, this asteroid did not make the usual mark on this moon's surface. With dry surfaces, like on our moon or mars, an impact of this magnitude makes an impact crater along with making the surrounding surface area a lumpy misshapen terrain. Scientists then knew that something was different about Callisto after this impact, but they had no way of getting a better look then. Now that Galileo has been set loose on these Jovian worlds they have been able to clarify what they have suspected for over a decade now, that Callisto's surface may be a watery one. So now it is more than likely that three out of four of Jupiter's largest moons have large oceans hiding just below their large Jovian surfaces.