Do you guys find it interesting that there is sodium (table salt) on Jupitor's moon Europa, is this normal?
It's been said that at one time, Mars had all the natural resources and it was much better for creating life compared to earth and I'm just wondering, was the sodium on Europa was formed naturally or something created it? It's been said that we all evolved from the sea, which is salt water and the...
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answers:
Phil A say: And I thought Himalayan salt was rare.
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Sky say: Sodium is an element. Table salt is sodium chloride, which on Earth dissolved into the sea water from the minerals in the rocks. To get onto the planet during formation it would have had to come from the same comets and asteroids that brought the water and other minerals in the first place, therefore the same materials would have made the other planets and moons including depositing sodium chloride and water in other places as well. Sodium and chlorine are elements that were formed in the nuclear fusion of stars and in supernova explosions, which scattered that and all the other naturally occurring elements into the universe to become the next generation of stars, planets, moons, etc.
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Ronald 7 say: Gypsum has been found on Mars
Europa is now known to have a subterranean ocean
Earth has oceans of salt water
It is natural for large bodies of water to be saline
Only rainwater is fresh
It is actually a worry that Europa's water might be too Saline for life
Which would be a pity
But you never know !
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John say: Chemically speaking. Sodium and chlorine are near the top of the reactivity scale. Put just about anything with either element in proximity and they will react together and form sodium chloride. Which is part of why NaCl is so common.
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daniel g say: Not particularly, sodium is a mineral, and not 'table salt'. Iodide treated and processed sodium is table salt.
No surprise to me it would be found on all the planets.
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poldi2 say: Table salt is not sodium. The element sodium is found all through space, it would of course be part of any rocky object. And since we evolved from sea life of course we have sodium in our bodies.
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quantumclaustrophobe say: Sodium is pretty common in the universe; it was likely very prevalent in the nebula that formed our solar system - so, I wouldn't be surprised to find at least *some* on every moon and planet (and dwarf planet) in our system - and, in other systems as well.
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busterwasmycat say: I expect salts such as sodium chloride to exist when the redox state of the system is in the middle zone of possible ranges. You won't see persistent sodium metal unless the system is very reducing and you won't see persistent chlorine gas unless the system is very oxidizing. Both sodium and chlorine are fairly common in this solar system, so sodium chloride is likely to exist pretty well anywhere you choose to look. Just a question of what else is around for the two elements to interact with and compete for. Both chlorine and sodium tend to get grabbed up by other compounds when present, but system conditions will often lead to sub-regions where the two will combine rather than grab onto competitor compounds. Like it is here on earth in the low temperature and low pressure region.

It is interesting that conditions are such that sodium and chloride will exist as free ions and thus be able to easily combine into NaCl (rather than somethings else, one with the sodium, another with the chlorine or even different parts of the same compound like in a mica). This suggests presence of water (OH- will compete with Cl- for spots in those compounds that have space and charge room for a modest-sized weakly-charged anion), but does not require water, I do not believe.
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ReductioAdAstronomicus say: Not particularly interesting.

Sodium is about the fifteenth most abundant element in the solar system. That's pretty common considering there are over 90 naturally occurring elements.

I don't know off hand, but my bet is that sodium would have about the same abundance in Jupiter's moons as in Jupiter itself if you subtract the huge overabundance of hydrogen and helium in Jupiter. Nothing unusually interesting there.

And I don't see what life has got to do with it. Maybe you should consult biologists about topics like evolution, the composition of mammalian cytoplasm, and the difference between salt and sodium. Biology is an interesting subject, but observation over a couple of centuries has shown that it has nothing to do with astronomy.
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the illuminati say: Nothing weird about that, sodium and chlorine are probably very common anywhere, its not surprising that they react with each other since they both have a valency of 1
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PhotonX say: If we can find every single one of the 92 natural elements on Earth, it stands to reason they were spread all around the nebula that collapsed to form the Solar System, right? So why would you be surprised to find sodium anywhere else? The only surprise would be if there *weren't* any there. Not everywhere on a world, but there somewhere. And NaCl is a simple compound, it's not as though it's hard to form.
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Choose a bloody best answer. It's not hard. say: I'm trying to follow your logic, and can't figure out what you actually mean to say.

Anyway, there are clouds of gas in the galaxy that contain enough alcohol to keep every human on the planet a committed alcoholic for as long as the universe has existed. That's normal.
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say: Thats great news,now we don't have to bring the salt,just pepper
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say: No

If there was sodium and chlorine in the original material which formed the earth, it's likely throughout the solar system.
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