When you think “volcano,” you picture lava and fire flowing down slopes, right? But out in the distant reaches of our Solar System, some volcanoes spit ice!
These icy powerhouses, called cryovolcanoes, are found on moons like Neptune's Triton and Saturn’s Enceladus. They don’t spit lava; they erupt with water, methane, and ammonia, forming landscapes that freeze almost immediately.
Enceladus, Saturn's sixth-largest moon, is famous for its icy plumes that rocket water vapor, ice, and gas through its surface cracks, forming Saturn’s faint E-ring.
Imagine a moon covered in thick ice with jets of water vapor shooting up to 500 kilometers high! Unlike molten lava, these materials are driven by the gravitational activity between Enceladus and Saturn, creating intense tidal heating within the moon.
Scientists even believe this cryovolcanism hints at warm, mineral-rich water beneath the surface—a potential environment for microbial life.
Cryovolcanoes don’t just erupt ice. They carve dramatic landscapes. Triton, Neptune’s largest moon, has cryovolcanoes that eject nitrogen gas, leaving vast plains with dark streaks on the frozen surface.
And while Triton’s plumes are less dramatic than Enceladus’s, they’re still impressive, launching nitrogen ice up to 8 kilometers high and leaving haunting streaks across Triton’s frozen plains.
But these volcanoes have a challenge: unlike molten lava, cryolava is denser than ice. For it to reach the surface, it needs extra help.
Pressure changes, tidal heating, and gases building up under the icy crust push cryolava through cracks, resulting in geyser-like eruptions.
Now that we know volcano's can spew ice, one can only imagine what volcano's are capable of emitting in galaxies far, far away.
This article was written by our quizmaster Surya Narayanan.
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