Trace amounts of water vapor have been detected on Venus', Jupiter's, and Saturn's atmospheres. And water is also embedded in Saturn's dazzling rings.
Evidence points to oceans on other planets and moons, even within our own solar system. But Earth is the only known planet (or moon) to have consistent, stable bodies of liquid water on its surface. In our solar system, Earth orbits around the sun in an area called the habitable zone.
Scientists recently used 20-year-old Voyager data to find even more evidence that Europa has twice as much water as our planet. Even tiny Pluto may have an ocean nearly as large as Earth's.
The "ice giant" (sometimes known as "water giant") planets Uranus and Neptune are thought to have a supercritical water ocean beneath their clouds, which accounts for about two-thirds of their total mass, most likely surrounding small rocky cores, although a 2006 study by Wiktorowicz and Ingersall ruled out the ...
Mars is rich in minerals that formed in water, and in some cases still hold water. These aptly named hydrated minerals can be found around the planet, as shown in maps made using data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the European Space Agency's Mars Express.
Pluto. Dwarf planet Pluto's surface is covered by a combination of nitrogen-rich ice and water ice. Pluto is thought to have a subsurface ocean about 100 kilometers deep. The surface of Pluto's largest moon, Charon, contains a mixture of ices including water ice.
Uranus is an ice giant. Most of its mass is a hot, dense fluid of "icy" materials – water, methane and ammonia – above a small rocky core.
Io, Ganymede, and Europa all have oxygen in their atmospheres, and roaming could be the cause. Io is a volcanic place – the most volcanic world in the Solar System – so life is ruled out there. Ganymede and Europa have subsurface oceans, so they could potentially harbour life.
The atmosphere of Jupiter is only about 44 miles thick. It has three layers made of ammonia ice, ammonium hydrosulfide crystals, and water ice and vapor. So, YES, Jupiter does have water. But it is not a large percentage of the chemical composition of the planet.
Perhaps the most surprising place water has been detected in the solar system is Mercury, the closest planet to the sun. While the surface is scorching, the poles are often untouched by the sun's heat, leading to an area where ice can accumulate.
Kepler-452b (sometimes quoted to be an Earth 2.0 or Earth's Cousin based on its characteristics; also known by its Kepler Object of Interest designation KOI-7016.01) is a super-Earth exoplanet orbiting within the inner edge of the habitable zone of the sun-like star Kepler-452 and is the only planet in the system ...
Piaulet and colleagues observed exoplanets Kepler-138c and Kepler-138d with NASA's Hubble and the retired Spitzer space telescopes and discovered that the planets could be composed largely of water.
Our home planet Earth is a rocky, terrestrial planet. It has a solid and active surface with mountains, valleys, canyons, plains and so much more. Earth is special because it is an ocean planet. Water covers 70% of Earth's surface.
Kepler-62e and Kepler-62f are thought capable of hosting life. The planet Kepler-69c is located about 2,700 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. This is an illustration of the planet, which is the smallest yet found to orbit in the habitable zone of a sun-like star.
On the Moon, water is found all over the surface, but it's mainly in the form of ice and not pools of liquid water. Some places have more water than others.
Flexi Says: Right now and for the foreseeable future, humans can only live on Earth. Humans have not traveled very far into space. The Moon is the only other place humans have visited. No other planet in our solar system currently has the conditions to support life as we know it on Earth.
The best places to look for life are where the ocean overlies warm rock. This may be the case inside Europa (Jupiter) and Enceladus (Saturn), but chemical reactions with the rock would make the liquid water salty, so not good to drink.
Next time you visit Jupiter remember to take an umbrella with you. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have discovered that drops of helium rain, laced with neon, could be falling from the clouds. Somewhere deep inside Jupiter it is raining helium.
However, one thing is certain - you would still be crushed to death. Even if Jupiter were gas all the way through, at the altitude you'd need to stay afloat the pressure and temperature would be similar to that on Venus' surface - much too high for a human to survive.
Tough Place for Life
It is unlikely that life as we know it could survive on Mercury due to solar radiation, and extreme temperatures.
Mercury's environment is not conducive to life as we know it. The temperatures and solar radiation that characterize this planet are most likely too extreme for organisms to adapt to.
Humans would not be able to breathe on Mercury. The planet has a very thin atmosphere with little oxygen to breathe in.
Uranus holds the record for the coldest temperature ever measured in the Solar System: a very chilly -224℃. The temperature on Neptune is still very cold, of course – usually around -214℃ – but Uranus beats that. The reason why Uranus is so cold is nothing to do with its distance from the Sun.
Scientists believe there is a giant ocean on Uranus! This ocean is thought to be 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit! That would be way too hot to swim in or to host any animals or plant life of any kind. Water boils on Earth at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, so the ocean on Uranus is 23 times hotter than boiling water!