Salty Waters

Artist’s concept of Cassini studying Titan

Salt preserves a water’s flow,

Suppresses freezing in the cold.

Cassini’s gravity data show

There is salt water down below

Titan’s outer crust of ice,

And liquid water does entice.

Salt on Mars may also say

That water flows there some days.

Ten times the salt of earthly seas

But for a very few of these.

The Dead Sea harbors microbes small

That only thrive when rain drops fall.

Alga, fungi, biofilms

Find fresh water most welcome.

Yet methane found on Titan, Mars,

Cannot survive the sunlight scars.

Here’s where NASA’s Phoenix landed

On Earth we’d say that life is there

Releasing methane in the glare.

So is there life on Saturn’s moon?

Did Martian soils ever bloom?

Now we’re poised to learn more,

To fly the missions, and explore.

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