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Jupiter's "Mini-Me" Solar System Grows
An anonymous reader writes "University of Hawaii's robotic telescopes have discovered 8 new moons for Jupiter, thus bringing its mini solar system to 48 total. No one knows how Jupiter dissipates the energy of these likely asteroid captures, unless it once had a massively larger atmosphere. Indeed, its ion cloud today seems to spell doom for what Sir Arthur C. Clarke indicated, is another reason to avoid probing life on Europa. ('All these worlds are yours--except Europa. Attempt no landings there.'-- 2010: Odyssey Two). As an aside, one of those NASA sites seem technically to be doing text-to-speech in a very familiar-sounding, Stephen Hawkings version [MP3] of those articles."
Besides, I still can't see how the Europa torus could hamper life there. On the surface, yes, but that was pretty much already known. Life would be underwater, in an ocean tens of kilometers deep, the radiations won't penetrate that far. So don't rule out Europa.
We should look for life on Europa but I thing it is not the right moment. We lack technical capabilities for now. A probe looking for life on Europa should travel the distance between Earth and Jupiter, land on Europa, burn its way through a very thick layer of ice (maybe 10 - 20km, swim autonmously trough a dark ocean probing for life, find its way up to the surface and transmit data back to earth. I think this is out of our technicak capabilities for now. Maybe latter.
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
Anything drifting between the stars is likely to have originated in a solar system somewhere. To have escaped from a star's gravity it would have needed an enormous velocity.
It would need to shed almost all of this velocity before it could then enter an orbit around Jupiter or the Sun. It would have to do this by coming extraordinarily close to Jupiter or the Sun - I have no idea if it could survive such an encounter without being ripped to pieces by tidal forces - anyone?
Needless to say we haven't seen anything entering the Solar System on such a trajectory, although it seems likely that huge numbers of small bodies were flung out of the Solar System in the period directly after planets were formed. So they might well be out there.
Is there an astrophysicist in the house?
Best wishes,
Mike.
If orbit was the only factor then it seems as though pluto must be a planet, all of the rocks circling jupiter must be a planet, and halleys comet must be a planet to. It orbits around the sun. Very elliptically but it is still an orbit.
If there is a ocean under the thick layer of ice (6-15km estimated), and if there is life, that life will probably exist only near thermal vents deep below and never find its way or at least never in detectable quantities. Here on Earth we do not know for sure if there is life in the Vostok lake.
http://ebgp.net/ccc/