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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."
But I wouldn't want to live there. You try building a house in an acid field.
Man, are those black obelisks going to be pissed. Of course, they are several years behind schedule already, which probably didn't do much for their attitude to begin with.
www.voiceofthehive.com - Beekeeping and Honeybees for those who don't.
You can bet that if there is life on Europa, they'll most certainly be blondes :D
We should send a probe loaded with Red Devil lye to help even things out.
Mental Note...don't make Europa Landing probe out of metal...
Doh!
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.
Key word being terrestrial. What about life forms based on silicon and sulphur (as opposed to carbon and oxygen). The theories are there, and I think we have merely begun to scratch the surface of what different kinds of 'life' may be out there.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
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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Main Entry: 1acid
Pronunciation: 'a-s&d
Function: adjective
Etymology: French or Latin; French acide, from Latin acidus, from acEre to be sour -- more at ACET-
2 a : of, relating to, or being an acid; also : having the reactions or characteristics of an acid (acid soil) (an acid solution) b of salts and esters : derived by partial exchange of replaceable hydrogen (acid sodium carbonate NaHCO3) c : containing or involving the use of an acid (as in manufacture) d : marked by or resulting from an abnormally high concentration of acid (acid indigestion)
blarg.
Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started here, all there was was acid...other kings said I was daft to build a castle on an acid field, but I built it all the same, just to show 'em. It sank into the acid. So, I built a second one. That sank into the acid. So, I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the acid, but the fourth one... stayed up! And that's what you're gonna get, lad: the strongest castle on this planet!
Even if there is life on Europa, they'll all be eurotrash, anyway.
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).
Then you'd have the three pillars of West Coast civilization.
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.
If there is vast quantities of H2O2 (Hydrogen peroxide), wouldn't that indicate the presense of life is more likely? It would indicate high levels of oxygen, since, H2O2 is obviously oxygen risk. Many farmers on earth use H2O2 to increase the concentration of oxygen in the water supply, so wouldn't that work on Jupiter as well?? Any chemists out there know the answer?
Mod +5 Drunk
Just have the probe take along bottle of Tums.
One bad monkey spoils the whole barrel.
I guess Europa's is nothing more than my girlfiend in planet form...
\\"You go hole now"
Isn't hydrogen peroxide a rocket fuel?
*hm....*
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Why do we decide the probability of life on Europa based on life's characteristics on Earth? It's a completely different environment that has never had any contact with Earth and almost certainly has never had conditions similar to conditions at any time in the history of life on Earth. Our knowledge of biology may not even apply to anything we discover out there.
Sulfuric acid found on Europa was reported as far back as 1999 when this article was published on Science@NASA based on this NASA Press release. According to the article, sulfur from volcanoes on Io, another one of Jupiter's satellites, may be responsible for the environment on Europa.
Massive by Design
pH 7 is neutral. 14 is 'completely' alkaline, and 0 is completely acid. pH 1 or 2 is a fairly strong acid (concentrated hydrochloric acid, for example).
The pH is the negative of the base 10 logarithm of the H3O+ ion concentration in water. At any given point, the pH + pOH = 14, and both the pH and pOH of neutral water are 7.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
But do you think sending a metric shitload of baking soda and red food dye counts as attempting a landing? Because I, for one, would LOVE to use Europa as a gigantic science-fair volcano.
What scientific illiterate modded this "insightful"?
The pH scale runs from 0 to 14, with a pH of 7 being neutral. The number is actually an inverse exponent and has to do with the concentration of hydrogen ions (H+) in solution. (You could also use pOH, relating to the concentration of hydronium ions (OH-), the relationship is pOH = 14 - pH).
-- Alastair
How so? pH = -log10([H+]) -- negative base ten log of hydrogen ion concentration. A pH of 0 would imply:
pH = 0 = -log10([H+]) ==> [H+] = 1 mol/liter.
H+ solutions which are more concentrated than 1 mol/liter will have pH values below zero.
A "logarithmic scale" means that linear changes in the scale indicate exponential changes in some underlying quantity. For every change of 1 in pH number, the concentration of the solution changes by a factor of ten. Just because the graph of log(x) goes to minus infinity as x goes to zero doesn't mean a logarithmic scale has some kind of asymptote.
Learn before you post.
This assumes that the concentration is high enough to be recovered and purified using the available local energy. That may not be the case.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such educational films as "Acid: Not just for Hippies Anymore" or "Hydrochloric Acid Dissolves all Evidence."
Not quite. pH is a scale for dilute acids and bases. 1M HCl would have a pH of 0. I've gotten 1M on my hands before...it's not that bad. Concentrated HCl is in the negatives as far as the pH scale goes. (pH=-log[H+]) The H+ concentration would be the same as the acid concentration, in this case 13M. -log(13)=-1.11
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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."
Such as UC Berkeley.
Unless I'm mistaken, you can have two hypotheses which both fit the evidence. In the absence of further evidence, you have two valid theories (although ultimately at least one must be incorrect, or at a minimum incomplete)
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
Well, at least that's the theory.
KFG
I am no chemist, but with all the hydrogen peroxide on the surface, we just need to send an initial landing party of astronauts with lots of cuts and scabs.
As soon as the H2O2 hits the infected areas, instant oxygen and water!
A few hundred battle-scarred individuals and we'll have an inhabitable atmoshpere.
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.
Interesting aside: Professor Peale narrowly made the window before Voyager took the now-famous pictures. He had done some work earlier on Earth's moon, then applied the same calculation to every moon in the solar system. But for historical reasons, orbital data about the Galilean moons are recorded differently from those of every other moon in the book where Professor Peale looked up the numbers to check each moon. He only noticed this months later, and when the calculation showed the possibility of a volcanic Io, he had to rush to try to get his prediction published-- ANYONE can write a paper explaining why a given moon is volcanic, but Professor Peale had actually predicted that Io was volcanic before anyone knew if it really was.
Anyway, the idea that Europa has a rocky center (with a molten interior) doesn't seem very likely to me. I've sent an e-mail to Professor Peale asking what he thinks, but I just did that, and he has not replied yet.
--Mark
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS--EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE."
/.! Damn you to helllllll!)
"SERIOUSLY. THE WHOLE PLACE IS COVERED IN ACID. WE LOST FIVE CRAFT BEFORE WE FOUND OUT."
"WE'RE JUST SAYING."
(ps - pretend this text isn't here. It's just lowercase stuff meant to get around the lameness filter so's I can tell this (admittedly lame) joke. Damn you,
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
Well, all that acid on Europa certainly explains David Bowman's trip during Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite.
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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