Research offers potential understanding of habitability on ocean worlds in the outer solar

Of the more than 30 locales at which deep-sea hydrothermal plumes have been detected along ultra-slow spreading mid-ocean ridges [MORs] to date, the nature of more than 90% has only been inferred from water column plume signals coupled with seafloor mapping and/or petrologic sampling. Where detailed studies have been carried out, “a diversity of styles of venting has been found, beyond what had previously been reported. This expansion of the geodiversity of hydrothermal sites has continued into the Arctic Ocean, first with the Aurora hydrothermal field [in the Gakkel Ridge] and now with this study.”