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Europa's Acid Ice Fields
tr0llb4rt0 writes "The New Scientist reports on recent observations that suggest the ice on Jupiter's moon Europa may be highly acid with a pH of near zero, and have a surface layer of hydrogen peroxide.
Two theories have been put forward. One says that the acid has been formed at the surface layer from oceanic salts reacting with the intense radiation from Jupiter, the other that sulphuric acid is coming directly from the ocean, with the water reacting with sulphur produced from undersea volcanos.
Wilst reducing the chances of life on Europa, it is not ruling it out completely, as there are terrestrial extremophile bacteria which thrive in highly acid environments."
Strange title considering life on Earth is thought to have been borne out of the toughest conditions.
I understand they are just saying "tough", but if life likely arose from similar (harsh) conditions, I don't think it would be that unlikely.
Disregarding the validity of this claim (which I find somewhat questionable), if it is true, it may put some things in doubt. However, life has been seen to survive in extreme circumstances, such as undersea vents, where it is able to use the chemicals released by the vents as sources of energy. So, not all hope is lost.
Just think twice before going for a swim...
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If anything I would say that a highly acidic environment supports the idea that life could form on Europa. If you compare Europa to the Earth model then it seems that the acidic environment was similar to the old Earth where most of the organisms were extremophiles that did not use oxygen but sulfur and other substances. Earth didn't gain much oxygen until photosynthesis took a foothold and when that happened it killed off most of the organimsms because oxygen destroys chemical reactions that aren't suitable. Also, most of the organisms that exist today are the real extremophiles since they are adapted to deal with non-acidic/cold/hot environment since the original Earth was very hostile (I doubt my wording made any sense). So I would say that the acidity supports the thought that life could exist (especially the presence of sulfur).
Spelunkers in caves observing extremophile bacteria that were literally eating away the cave with the sulfuric acid end products of their metabolism. Their experiments were finding levels of acid were largely driven by biological processes.
What about life forms based on silicon and sulphur (as opposed to carbon and oxygen).
I'm not sure that we might even be able to recognize it as life despite observing it. We are living in a universal time period where there have been enough supernovae explosions to create an abundant supply of carbon and oxygen, plenty more will be required before there will be enough to chemically kickstart silicon based life.
There's no way of knowing if that kind of life will work on an evolutionary platform, maybe it will maybe it won't, for us it's DNA, what will it be for them?
Easy solution? Glass or Pyrex. Or if you want to be a bit more sophisticated, some sort of polymer.
Or you could still use metal, but take an ablative approach...Essentially standing on thick stilts. Make sure they stand vertical (as opposed to at an angle) else they'll only provide a short-term delay rather than a long-term one.
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Two notes:
1. The large amount of oxygen on Earth is a result of the the presence of life, not a prerequisite for it.
2. Even if a particular element has a low universal abundance, there can still be a local concentration of it high enough to "kickstart life" (as might be the case with silicon and sulpher on Europa).
If you ever get a severe burn that removes the top layer of skin, first aid will include an airtight dressing. Oxygen on unprotected tissue hurts.
By the time you get past the lungs, oxygen is locked into special carrier molecules and shuttled to mitochondria. Most parts of your body aren't exposed to it, and even so there's cumulative cell damage from oxidation that's been theorized to be a cause of aging.
We've adapted to it, even "learned" how to get energy from it, but we did that with wrapper layers.
Oxygen-releasing algae were the ultimate environmental catastrophe.
A completely seperate _Domain_ of life, only recently delineated from bacteria an eukaryotes. Analysis of acid mine drainage sites have found these microbes living in pH -3.5, and actually actively drive down the pH themselves. See http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/archaea/archaea.html.
Jill Banfield, a Macarthur Grant recipient, has done quite a bit of work on this.
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