[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Blue Salt
- To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
- Subject: Re: Blue Salt
- From: Ron Baalke <BAALKE@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov>
- Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 16:25:06 GMT
- Old-X-Envelope-To: <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
- Resent-Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 12:27:22 -0400 (EDT)
- Resent-From: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com
- Resent-Message-ID: <"kitk2D.A.jBH.aKht1"@mu.pair.com>
- Resent-Sender: meteorite-list-request@meteoritecentral.com
>>The most likely origin for the halite is brines, indicating that
>>there might be fluid in the halite, and there might be aqueous alteration
>>of the stone.
> I got to thinking about where such aqueous alteration might occur. The
>only place that I know of in the solar system that has salt water that halite
>might precipitate out of is the Earth. Then the September issue of Astronomy
>magazine came in the mail...much to my suprize, on page 32 is an artical
>describing how the've found evidance of salt deposits on Europa!
The salt deposits on Europa is one of the pieces of evidence that
Europa has (or had) a liquid ocean. Anywhere you can get liquid water
to form, you're bound to get some sort of salt deposit. This is not
inconceivable in the interior of an asteroid during its early formation.
By the way, we've had a bit of a problem with the Galileo spacecraft the
other night during its last encounter with Europa. One of the its main
computers went down, and the backup computer is struggling along. We
are doing memory readouts and trying to figure out what happened.
Ron Baalke
----------
List Archives are located at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/list_best.html
For other help, FAQ's and subscription info and other resources,
visit http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing_list.html
----------