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Discovery Increases Odds of Life On Europa
tetrahedrassface writes "Observations of spectral emissions from the surface of Europa using state of the art ground based telescopes here on Earth have lent data that indicate the surface of the Jovian moon is linked with the vast ocean below. The observations carried out by Caltech's Mike Brown and JPL's Kevin Hand show that water is making it from the ocean below all the way up to the surface of the moon. In their study (PDF) they noticed a dip in the emission bands around lower latitudes of the moon, and quickly honed in on what they were seeing. The mineral of interest is epsomite, a magnesium sulfate compound that can only come from the ocean below. From the article: 'Magnesium should not be on the surface of Europa unless it's coming from the ocean,' Brown says. 'So that means ocean water gets onto the surface, and stuff on the surface presumably gets into the ocean water.' Not only does this mean the ocean and surface are dynamically interacting, but it also means that there may be more energy in the ocean than previously thought. Another finding is that the ocean below the icy surface of Europa is basically very similar to an ocean on Earth, giving the neglected and premier solar body for life past Earth another compelling reason for being explored."
At first glance I read the title as "Discovery Increases Odds of Life In Europe".
"lent data"???
"honed in"????
Self awareness - try it!
and a series of flybys began in the 1970s. Pioneer 10 and 11 visited Jupiter in 1973 and 1974 respectively.
Two Voyager probes traveled through the Jovian system in 1979 providing more detailed images of Europa's icy surface. The images caused many scientists to speculate about the possibility of a liquid ocean underneath.
Starting in 1995, the Galileo probe began a Jupiter orbiting mission that lasted for eight years, until 2003, and provided the most detailed examination of the Galilean moons to date. It included, Galileo Europa Mission and Galileo Millennium Mission, with numerous close flybys of Europa.
Neglected indeed.
Not.
(Paraphrased from Wikipedia)
Sent from my ENIAC
it's all the same to us. USA rocks!
It doesn't matter how well you do in your endeavours if we continuously push 'Chance of life' as a way to get the general public interested. How many times do you think the public can hear about 'Nope, nothing there' when the original headline was 'Amazing new possible discovery that will rock the foundations of the space program". Don't get me wrong, I find the concept of alien geology to be very interesting and love these stories, but please cut back on the 'hints/signs/rumor/promise of life' in headlines.
Before anyone responds with "But we have to make it interesting for the unwashed masses...", I'm going to preempt that with the fact that you don't want space exploration to be relegated to the same 'Overhype/Overpromise' location in the collective consciousness currently reserved for late night infomercials and miracle health products.
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Or maybe just cracks in the ice caused by tidal changes. Then water down below would sublimate. rise to the surface. and freeze. Maybe the vapour would carry some metals with it. Magnesium is a good construction material BTW.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I'd be willing to bet that the addition of mass roughly the size of Europa might also be the solution to that problem as well.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Almost certain he gets more probing as well.
Sent from my ENIAC
"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there." -- A. C. Clarke
Required reading for internet skeptics
Just spread the rumor that Europan whales make the best sushi in the Universe and the Japanese will launch a mission to Europa within the year. As an added bonus Iceland would start a space program.
It just occured to be that some parts of Europa are so flat that a vehicle in the form of a sled may be able to slide to a stop from orbital velocity.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Tidal forces seem like a good culprit, considering the extreme gravitational forces involved.
Europa is too far away. We should just send it on a crash course for mars. By the time it gets there we will have found a way to thicken up the atmosphere a bit so the water doesn't evaporate right away.
Do you plan to do the pushing?
No kidding on "by the time it gets there". It will take a LOT of pushing to get it up out of Jupiter's orbit and then downhill to an impact orbit with Mars.
After that Mars will be too hot for life for a long time.
Meanwhile, if there is life on Europa OR Mars, you've just created an extinction (event or two) of total-biosphere magnitude. Here's hoping nobody does that to Earth.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
All these worlds
Are yours except
Europa
Attempt no
Landing there
It's things like Europa and robots on Mars that make me want to punch the 'Cry, cry, we need to put a man back on the moon, because something!' crowd.
Was the Apollo program a heroic piece of engineering? No question. But does the moon have any major virtues aside from being close enough to man-in-a-can with relatively primitive life support gear? It's a hostile, sterile rock with not a whisper of atmosphere(and conveniently close and well-lit for the telescope crew). We have basically no reason to suspect that it has, or ever had, anything approaching life. Mars is a practically shirtsleeves environment by comparison, and Europa is under serious suspicion of having some serious organic chemistry going down under the ice. What sort of grainy, sepia-toned nostalgia wankfest would have us putzing around the moon, again, when there is other cool stuff to poke at?
Well what kind of life would there be? I'm guessing mostly jelly fish. Can they check for any other kind of chemical traces?
Streetlight effect anyone? Leaving it for later don't mean that then we will be able to do it, we could be in the same situation as today or worse.
Tidal forces seem like a good culprit, considering the extreme gravitational forces involved.
Which is interesting because enough gravitational heating of the moon's core to keep an ocean liquid suggests the possibility of life even in the absence of sunlight, just as is found in some deep oceans on earth. I suppose its possible for there to be enough infrared near thermal vents, but by and large, you would expect any putative life to have evolved completely without any form of photoreceptors, let alone eyes.
Some clever minds are probably already at work conceptualizing payload packages to investigate these cracks for an under-ice rover.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
An under-ice rover isn't likely in the near future, as estimates of the ice thickness range from 30km to at least a few kilometers.
cokane.com
You can't really take that channel seriously anymore - its full of stuff like Mythbusters, Deadliest Catch, Dirty Jobs, , Dual Survival, Cash Cab etc
Great entertainment but not real science.
My God! It's full of Starfish!!!
Rule of Acquisition #19: Satisfaction is Not guaranteed.
If the guy who admits killing Pluto finds life on another object.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
And you've sentenced them to extinction by sushi?
Isn't it the 'odds of FINDING life'? The 'odds of life' aren't a factor, there is either life there or there isn't.
Please recall this article about "panspermia". It means that we are practically certain to find Earth-originated life-forms down there in the ocean of Europa. If life originated there independently of Earth, there might not be any evidence of it left!
Given that this thread mentioned using an RTG (a Radioisotope Thermal Generator, which is just an electrical generator that operates off of waste heat produced by a radioactive material decaying), it seems like the solution here is pretty obvious, even if it might be a painfully slow.
The odds of finding life within (not ON) Europa are exactly the same as they were before. The conditions either are or are not conducive to life, whether we were aware of them or not. That life either does or does not exist, whether we were aware of it or not. (The place could be habitable, but uninhabited, so the two statements are not the same.)
What has changed is our belief of just what those odds ARE. The residents of Europa, should they exist, are completely unaffected by this news... at least until we decide to drop in on them.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Actually, I have a distinct recollection of how some Nasa engineer had a probe design in mind that would work. It would melt itself through several kilometers of ice in a few months and leave a cable behind connecting it to a transmitter on the surface. I don't think it's too hard for engineers that are capable of constructing such a probe to stick a couple of propellers on it for diving. Although, I don't know about appropriate precautions to prevent it from ending up as an appetizer for some Europian super sharks. Maybe mirrors to reflect lasers..?
I think... I feel good about it.
Life, ultimately, boils down to the Four Fs: Fighting, Fleeing, Feeding, and Mating.
Various impact objects could be candidates too.
no wonder my printer catridges cost so much, they had to go to Europa to mine it!
If there is life in the ocean under the ice and if there are interactions with the surface then it could be possible to find evidence of life from the chemical composition of the surface ice in selected areas. We should send an orbiting probe to determine the most likely spots and then send a lander.
While I would love for NASA to send a submarine, just trying to imagine the engineering effort makes my head spin. It's possible but would cost tens of billions and the chances for failure for something that complex is very high. Not very likely to get the green light with current budgets.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Why couldn't we figure out a way to use one of the crack that is spewing water out?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The mineral of interest is epsomite, a magnesium sulfate compound that can only come from the ocean below.
So the great discovery on Europa are bath salts. Well I guess we do face an aging population, perhaps this will get a good push from all the AARP crowd so they can soak comfortably.
Or worms - maybe even intelligent worms capable of thinking great worm thoughts like, "dirt, dirt, water, dirt, um... more dirt, aw shit. Dirt..."
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
An under-ice rover isn't likely in the near future, as estimates of the ice thickness range from 30km to at least a few kilometers.
But...we know that the outer crust of Europa is elastic because of the gravitational forces from Jupiter. According to http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~fnimmo/website/paper27.pdf there is likely to be areas during certain tidal forms that are much thinner than that and some that are thicker. As we study it further I am sure smarter people than myself will work out math to make this feasible. Assuming certain countries' space programs are given a budget and they can afford to spend a little less on fighter jets and bombs, that is.
The best chance of further exploration is if scientist predict not only life, but also, that it is delicious.
I don't think that you meant "sublimate" ; or "sublimate" doesn't mean what you think it means.
Simple fluid flow, followed by evaporation to leave the salts behind is a quite adequate mechanism.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Warm water exposed to vacuum will sublimate. The magnesium may be transported physically, just carried along with a stream of vapour.
http://michaelsmith.id.au