Submitted by sudosudoku t3_11ggnrk in askscience
agate_ t1_jasl2w2 wrote
The rock types of the inner planets — Mercury through Mars — are basically the same. Earth has more variety because it’s got plate tectonics and water on the surface, but most of the minerals on these worlds are stuff we recognize from Earth, and the major components of the bulk planets are the same.
You mentioned Titan though. The moons of many of the outer planets are largely made of water ice. Out there, water is just a type of rock. (You could argue water is a mineral here on Earth too, especially if you live up north, but if it is it’s a weird one.)
Two other types of “minerals” appear in the outer solar system that are nothing like what we see on Earth. First, many of the outer moons’ surfaces are covered with dark or reddish materials that we can’t identify precisely but seem to be organic carbon compounds of some sort. Second, many of the larger moons have water ice layers so thick that exotic new types of ice form in the high pressure interior.
And in the extreme outer solar system (beyond Neptune), nitrogen becomes a solid ice that could be considered a mineral as well.
Titan in particular has probably has a lot of organic schmoo on top of a water ice crust, a liquid water layer under that a high pressure ice layer under that, and then a core of traditional rocky minerals at the center.
https://openstax.org/books/astronomy-2e/pages/7-2-composition-and-structure-of-planets
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/saturn-moons/titan/in-depth.amp
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