Ocean Worlds Resources

Our solar system is home to a diverse array of ocean worlds: bodies that contain oceans and seas of liquid, usually water, either on their surfaces or underneath icy crusts. Learn more about these ocean worlds and a few future mission concepts to explore their plumes, surfaces, and ocean depths.

Tune in to this episode of Ask an Astrobiologist to learn about ocean exploration, ocean worlds in our solar system, and what it’s like living and working on a research vessel.

Are there oceans on other worlds? Yes! Earth is not alone. When you look deeper into our solar system, there are worlds we suspect have oceans hidden beneath their icy surfaces.

Life as we know it requires three ingredients: energy, organic molecules, and liquid water. Our search for life beyond Earth is a search for planets, dwarf planets, and moons that harbor substantial liquid water.

Our planet is a beautiful water-filled world, teeming with life. But did you know that Earth is not the only world in our solar system with an ocean? Here’s what you need to know about ocean worlds.

NASA’s Europa Clipper is the first mission dedicated to studying Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, one of the most promising places in our solar system to find an environment suitable for life outside of Earth.

Learn about NASA’s Europa Clipper mission and its main science goals.

There’s a legacy of NASA spacecraft carrying inspirational messages into the cosmos, and Europa Clipper will continue this tradition when it launches to Europa.

Deep beneath the crust of Jupiter’s frozen moon Europa lies a massive liquid water ocean. Exploring this ocean world with our Europa Clipper spacecraft could provide new clues in our search for life beyond Earth.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s observations of Europa have revealed the presence of persistent water vapor — but, mysteriously, only in one hemisphere.

Learn about the detection of water vapor on Jupiter’s moon, Europa.

Note: This video is also available in Spanish.

Discover why scientists are so excited about Europa’s potential to answer one of humanity’s most profound questions – is there life beyond Earth?

Find out why scientists think Jupiter’s moon Europa might have twice as much water as Earth in this 60-second space short!

Learn about the Dragonfly mission to Titan: How we’ll get there, what we’ll do there, and how it could teach us about the building blocks of life.

Learn how Titan is expanding our understanding of the chemical complexity of the solar system and the potential for life in the universe.

Discover how Dragonfly’s suite of science instruments will investigate the chemistry and habitability of Titan.

Learn how NASA planetary scientists are probing ocean worlds in the outer solar system, searching for evidence of liquid water and possible signs of life beneath the icy surface. Put what you learn into practice by investigating a frozen sphere using various tools to learn about objects hidden inside. This activity can be adapted to include whatever materials you may already have on hand.

Note: This activity is also available in Spanish.

Jupiter’s moon Europa poses exciting new possibilities for NASA’s search for life beyond Earth. While there’s still much to uncover about Europa, scientists have long known that liquid water exists beneath its icy shell. But how?

In this classroom activity, students will explore the relationship between magnetism and electricity to model how scientists determined that Europa has a magnetic field and a conductive liquid, subsurface ocean.

Scientists believe that Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, has a liquid-water ocean underneath its frozen surface. While we can’t see that ocean directly, we can use the mass and density of known substances to predict what exists underneath the surface. In this activity, you’ll use the fundamentals of density to propose a model for the interior structure of Europa.

By observing the motions of spinning eggs, you will learn how to determine which are raw and which are hard-boiled. In this activity, the raw egg can be compared to an ocean world while the hard-boiled egg can be compared to a solid planetary body.

Note: This activity was made for NASA’s InSight mission to Mars but can be adapted to discuss ocean worlds.

Explore Jupiter’s moon Europa and the Europa Clipper spacecraft like never before in the immersive ClipperAR (augmented reality) experience. You can visit Europa, peer through its layers, and learn about Europa’s ingredients for life.

Europa is one of Jupiter’s moons, and scientists believe that it may have twice as much water as Earth, though it is so cold on Europa that water on the surface of this moon is frozen. Give color to Europa with this coloring page. Note: This activity is also available in Spanish.

In this activity, you can explore the textures of Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons. Note: This activity is also available in Spanish.

NASA Solar System Treks are online, browser-based portals that allow you to explore the surfaces of other worlds using real data returned from a growing fleet of spacecraft. Visit Europa, Titan, and Ganymede now!

Learn about ocean worlds and their potential for harboring life in this handout.

This gallery shows field research sites on Earth side-by-side with similar environments on other worlds. Research at planetary analog locations on Earth helps scientists make sense of the solar system.

Discover how scientists use Earth as a test lab to learn about other worlds in the solar system.

Download your own Europa Clipper poster, desktop background, or mobile wallpaper.

Learn more about Europa with this colorful infographic.