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Salty Ocean On Europa Could Mean Life
Arctic Fox writes: "Based on data from the Galileo satellite, scientists have evidence for a salty ocean under the surface of Europa.
As reported in this article from the UK Times. Who cares about water? Now if they could only find a monolith." The underpinnings for life grow tantalizingly more evident as our vicarious observations grow in detail and scope. From the article: "The probe has also detected patterns in the moon's magnetic field that could be generated by a liquid ocean underneath its surface. Because salty water conducts electricity, its presence on Europa, which is within Jupiter's magnetic field, would lead an ocean to generate a field of its own."
As reported in this article from the UK Times. Who cares about water? Now if they could only find a monolith." The underpinnings for life grow tantalizingly more evident as our vicarious observations grow in detail and scope. From the article: "The probe has also detected patterns in the moon's magnetic field that could be generated by a liquid ocean underneath its surface. Because salty water conducts electricity, its presence on Europa, which is within Jupiter's magnetic field, would lead an ocean to generate a field of its own."
NASA PRESS RELEASE: We have sucessfully spent $30,000,000,000 to pump new life into the now stagnent frozen fish market.
"retro-fitting for the unwitting"
No that was an episode of IRON CHEF
"retro-fitting for the unwitting"
Place your bets now. Will there be life found elsewhere in our solar system? Secondary bets may be placed on the following, for those who prefer to wager on human nature rather than nature itself. Will the presence of life on other planets create significant doubt amongst creationists? Will the absence of life on planets which have all the supposed necessary ingredients create significant doubt amongst evolutionists?
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
That soon? I think the technical challenges are too great to mount such a mission so soon. We might be dealing with an ice layer severel miles thick.
It is my personal belief that there IS life down there. I can't wait until we prove it.
Rich...
Ignore Alien Orders
Comparing the public's interest in space exploration now with the '60s, it seems that the public does not care. Possibly the public embraced space exploration during the '60s as a means of 'hoping for better things.' During war, corruption and the cold war, space exploration was a 'happy thing', something that people could get excited about. Now, we are busier with our lives, no cold war worries and, sure, corruption is still around. What would motivate the U.S. and other nations to have a renewed interest in space exploration? I have never heard the issue raised during the presidential-race. The public generally does not care? No mission to mars? Alpha-centauri? Am I crazy? Should I lead an isolated life and join one of Joe Firmage's funky organizations?
What does probability have to do with it? So far, the only evidence we have that the probability of life is anything greater than zero for a given planet/-oid/moon/nebula/toroidal gas-cloud/pocket dimension/Jon Katz is the evidence of our own planet.
And don't forget that we may all be evolved from Martian bacteria, or interstellar cooties, or whatever the Space Flavor of the Week is.
Of course, this week's Space Flavor happens to be "salt water on Europa". It doesn't really change anything, except maybe our understanding of the planet. Then again, it does mean that conditions for life as we know it may in fact prevail on parts of that remote sphere.
Not that it's a sphere, natch... but while I'm here, it occurs to me that every time we learn something new about Europa, it seems to be some new condition for terrestrial life that the moon has met. It certainly helps to build the suspense, don't it? Europa will turn out to be the Al Capone's Vault of the new milennium, or else one of the greatest discoveries in human history. Personally, I can't wait.
As for it being a moon, and therefore more extreme, I'll wager 100 interplanetary megabucks (or whatever base unit of currency we and the Europans end up using) that the conditions on Venus are not only more "extreme" than the conditions on Europa, but that the conditions on Venus are more extreme than the conditions on Venus' own moons. Honestly, you make even less sense than I do.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No no no, that's only in Frankenstein.
Then in the eighties, it became popular to throw random chemicals together to create life.
These days, the more existential sci-fi justs conjures life out of mid-air, some how dealing with will-power and bulging frontal lobes.
Right now, I'm creating an army of fire-breathing penguins on Europa and directing the linux-kernel mailing list there, in the hopes that the large amount of flaiming will heat the planet enough to create a tropical paradise by my retirement in the mid 2030s.
How is Europa's size compared to Earth's or Luna's? With this discovery, could this be a comfortable place for people to live (with water and all)?
:)
Europa's diameter is 3,138 km (1,946 miles), just a bit smaller than Earth's moon.
The surface gravity is also slightly less than that of our moon, which is 1/6 Earth gravity. That wouldn't stop people from living there, but the fact that the entire surface is ice would make it a bit, well, slippery.
I know it's far away, but how does it compare to Mars?
Europa isn't really comparable to Mars in many ways. Mars has an atmosphere -- thin and unbreathable, but much more substantial than vaccuum. Also, being much closer to the sun, Mars would have more energy available for things like growing plants and generating power from wind and sun.
On the other hand, I suppose that Europa's oceans (assuming they exist) could be more hospitable than the surface! Anything's possible... especially when monoliths are involved.
--
Is it okay to cry "Movie!" in a crowded firehouse? --Steve Martin
Actually, in the book there was a joint Soviet/American mission, as well as a Chinese mission. The Chinese got there first, landed on Europa, and started pumping water into their tanks. The lights from the ship attracted some plant-like animal which destroyed the ship. The remaining Chinese astronaut (one of two not on/near the ship at the time) then started transmitting to the Leonov even though the Chinese had been maintaining radio silence until that point. He described what had happened, and kept transmitting until they lost the signal. They never regained it.
Having just read the book (and working on 2061), I'm really disappointed by what was left out of the movie. Not that it's a poor movie, but the book is (almost always) so much better.
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H.L. Mencken
Really, you don't want to take the lack-of-inclusion-equals-false approach to using the Bible truth-o-meter. The bible never explicitly states that the square root of 9 is three, Bill Clinton smoked pot or my shirt is blue... but all those things are true.
there is really no way they can verify this without actually finding existing life
2 1337 4 u!
Amazing how many people fell for this. Man, you should try alt.religion.kibology for a while.
Other than the blasphemous assumption in the second paragraph, it was pretty good. But, there are Fundamentalist Christians who actually do make those kind of categorical statements about what God would or would not do, without any Scriptural support.
Oh -- one thing. You assumed Europa existed, despite the fact that it's not visible to the naked eye and isn't mentioned in the Bible. A line about how astonomy moved straight from serving Satan through astrology to serving Satan through godless science would have served well.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Finding life, of any sort, elsewhere, would give us a great deal more information. If it's similiar to ours it implies that there's similar processes going on elsewhere, or that we're related. If it's different then it gives us entirely new insights into how complexity evolves. Either way it's exciting stuff that could advance our understanding of biology, biochemestry, evolution, complexity, etc. immensely. It could even give us better numbers to plug into those formulas for figuring out how likely we are to have neighbors.
Nobody is expecting anything on Europa to pop up & greet us with a "Codex Universalis" - just there being anything lifelike* would be enough. Even there being nothing will tell us something
-- Michael
* We still don't know enough about life yet to come up with a really good definition anyone is particularly comfortable with.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Dear fellow aliens, :-)
I've just discovered this planet called Earth, which may or may not have life on the surface it. Unfortunately the life seems to be beneath an unpleasant gaseous layer. I'd like to launch a mission during which we'll freeze the entire atmosphere, and make contact with the life on the planet surface who will no doubt be extremely friendly and appreciative about our visit... Who is interested in helping fund this endeavour?
If I might paraphrase your avatar's words upon his reported ascension into space,Therefore fundamentalists and trolls should expect to find some sort of "sheep" elsewhere in the universe. Your ass is covered on that account.
But you might be in trouble in other regards:
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I was going to post this article from cnn.com about the future explorations of Saturn and Jupiter's moons, but didn't because I didn't think it was interesting enough.
It covers most of the "interesting" moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto and Titan. It's pretty interesting to hear how the scientists have changed their opinions of these moons as our technology has improved. This may be a case of improvement without any real benefit, but it still goes to show that they will freely admit they don't know everything and sometimes get things wrong.
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Planning to be moderated ± 1: Bad Pun.
I know this is a troll, but I also know that there're those who really have this opinion, so I'll bite. Ummm, howbout satellites, for example? If not for the space-race with the russians, the extensive launching system for our satellites would not have been developed. They're a major contribution to our communication infrastructure, weather research, international reconnaisance (if you like military spending, hows that?), GPS for god's sake. These benefits were not apparent at the time of Sputnik, just as the benefits of Europa are not apparent now.
Could you imagine the medical and material science possibilities of finding another naturally-developed form of life? Look at the myriad uses of crude-oil. The massive amount of pharmaceuticals developed from esoteric wildlife. Imagine if we find something equally useful on Europa. Sure, it'd have to be pretty damned important to merit importing it across space, but if we didn't check, we'd never know at all. We won't find ET, but we could find something we can use.
I do agree that most space research is, by and large, abstract knowledge. But some of it has very real possibilities. International space station is such a possibility. If we can make a sustainable orbital platform in orbit, where else can we build one? Around Europa? In the asteroid belt for its rescources? NCC-1701-E wasn't built in a day. If you ever want it to happen, you have to give people a chance to get there.
(To the tune of My Sharona)
Ooo my little pretty moon, my pretty moon
When you gonna show me some life, Europa?
Ooo you make my mission run, my mission run
Gonna look in your brine, Europa
Never gonna stop
Gotta look
Such a purty brine
Always gotta look
For the sign of life
My my my my my
Woo!
Mm mm mm my Europa
Gonna look a little closer huh
Whatcha got?
Close enough to look in your brine, Europa
Keepin' it a mystery, gets to me
Running down the depth of your brine, Europa
Never gonna stop
Gotta look
Such a purty brine
Always gotta look
For the sign of life
My my my my my
Woo!
Mm mm mm my Europa
When you gonna show to me, show to me?
Is it just a matter of time, Europa?
Is it d-d-destiny? D-destiny?
Or is it just a game in my mind, Europa?
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Emerson,
The Bible is a grand, beautiful book, and I think that Christ was one of the greatest teachers and thinkers that ever lived (despite my being agnostic). However, to take the word of the Bible literally (or to "literally imply") is to fall into that same trap as so many others have fallen into i.e. people who have used the word of the Bible to justify all sorts of less-than-cool stuff.
It's one thing to subscribe to a belief system, especially one with as many good things about it as Christianity. But these systems must adapt to the times -- the Christian of today doesn't believe many of the things that a Christian of 1000 years ago believed. Does that make today's Christian more or less of a Christian as judged by the standards that existed then?
Creationists all too often see science as trying to 'disprove' the existence of a divine being. I think that this is a negative way of looking at it. I like to think of science as trying to find out more about the universe that God (if there is a God) made.
Regards,
John
Falling You - beautiful