Sep 19, 2026 07:14 PM
Scientists simulate cosmic crashes to test whether icy moons gain or lose their ability to sustain life
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1144588
EXCERPT: Scientists suspect some of today’s moons are reassembled remnants of earlier generations of moons, shattering and reforming from space debris. One question arises: Do these collisions also destroy a moon’s ocean and with it, any chance for life?
A University of Maryland-led study published on August 21, 2026, in the journal Nature Astronomy offers an answer. After simulating violent collisions on frozen moons, researchers found that even the biggest crashes don’t fundamentally change whether these icy worlds can hold an ocean.
“The big question we asked was whether these destructions help moons have oceans afterward or whether they delete the ocean and reset the moon into a cold, dead world,” explained the study’s lead author Marc Neveu, an astronomy associate research scientist at UMD. “What we found was that those big collisions don't really matter as far as oceans are concerned. If there was an ocean before, there's likely to be an ocean after and vice versa.”
The finding surprised Neveu and his co-authors at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel... (MORE - missing details, no ads)
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1144588
EXCERPT: Scientists suspect some of today’s moons are reassembled remnants of earlier generations of moons, shattering and reforming from space debris. One question arises: Do these collisions also destroy a moon’s ocean and with it, any chance for life?
A University of Maryland-led study published on August 21, 2026, in the journal Nature Astronomy offers an answer. After simulating violent collisions on frozen moons, researchers found that even the biggest crashes don’t fundamentally change whether these icy worlds can hold an ocean.
“The big question we asked was whether these destructions help moons have oceans afterward or whether they delete the ocean and reset the moon into a cold, dead world,” explained the study’s lead author Marc Neveu, an astronomy associate research scientist at UMD. “What we found was that those big collisions don't really matter as far as oceans are concerned. If there was an ocean before, there's likely to be an ocean after and vice versa.”
The finding surprised Neveu and his co-authors at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel... (MORE - missing details, no ads)