%0 Journal Article
%A Ruiz Pérez, Javier
%A Fairén, Alberto G.
%T Seas under ice: stability of liquid-water oceans within icy worlds
%D 2005
%@ 0167-9295
%U https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/49334
%X The present-day existence of internal oceans under the outer ice shell of several icy satellites ofthe Solar System has been recently proposed. The presence of antifreeze substances decreasing ice’smelting point (and tidal heating in Europa’s case) has been generally believed to allow the stability of suchoceans; limited cooling of the water (ice plus liquid) layer, due to stability against convection or tostagnant lid convection in the icy shell, have been also considered. Here we propose that even pure liquidwateroceans could survive today within several icy worlds, and we consider some factors affecting thermalmodeling in these bodies. So, the existence of such oceans would be a natural consequence of the physicalproperties of water ice, independently from the addition of antifreeze substances or any other specialconditions. The inclusion of these substances would contribute to expand the conditions for water to stayliquid and to increase ocean’s volume.
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