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Europa's Ocean Chemistry Could Be Earth-Like (discovery.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Alien life in the universe could be close to home, swimming around Europa's ocean. The idea has been floating around scientific minds for more than a decade: beneath the icy surface of the Jovian moon could slosh a deep, wide ocean with the perfect environment for life to develop. In new research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, NASA scientists studied how the chemical composition of the Europan ocean may have evolved and what chemicals it possibly contains, assuming similar geochemical processes as on Earth are at play. Europa is thought to possess a rocky core fractured with deep cracks that have filled with water. Since the formation of the moon, the core has continued to cool, creating more cracks and exposing more rocks to chemical processes with this water."We're studying an alien ocean using methods developed to understand the movement of energy and nutrients in Earth's own systems," said planetary scientist Steve Vance, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The cycling of oxygen and hydrogen in Europa's ocean will be a major driver for Europa's ocean chemistry and any life there, just it is on Earth."
Life is a process and any substrate that facilitates that process qualifies as "alive." See: Code of the Lifemake for a illustration of that.
Shh.
Dammit, "Code of the Lifemaker." Not "Lifemake."
Shh.
"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE."
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
In short, don't let Von Neumann probes run wild on distant planets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft#Von_Neumann_probes
This was hinted at much longer than a decade ago:
"The idea that Europa and other ice-covered bodies in our solar system might possess an ocean of liquid water under a crust of ice was first proposed by John S. Lewis in his paper Satellites of the Outer Planets: Their Physical and Chemical Nature (which appeared in Icarus, vol.15, 1971)." (source: https://www.math.washington.ed...)
And I recall Carl Sagan talking about life on Europa in his Cosmos television show, back in the 80s.
But astrobiology has come a long way since then. I'm halfway through Nick Lane's "The Vital Question" and he goes into detail about the mechanisms which can form complex cellular structures given nothing but alkaline water, hydrocarbons, rock (to supply catalysts), and an energy source.
Can anyone provide a real answer to the question? I doubt it.
Someone else might find it useful today, tomorrow or 300 years from now. That's the nature of scientific research. How far would have Einstein have gotten without Newton?
I wouldn't know if there is life, but it sure looks like it hit something pretty big... I doubt it's alive now
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Galileo Galilei named Europa(moon) and if you read wikipedia, it actually makes sense. It's named after Europa, who happened to be a lover of Zeus. Zeus is the Greek God the Romans called Jupiter. Galilei figured it might make sense that the object orbiting Jupiter would be his lover.
It's a bad name today due to the nameclash with the continent. However I'm not so sure that it mattered back then. The prince in Troja was named Paris and they certainly didn't care about city nameclashes. There is an aircraft carrier named George Washington. I haven't heard anybody complaining that they confuse the ship with a human being. There are plenty of intended or unintended nameclashes. We just have to live with those because renaming would be even more confusing.
The discovery of life on Europa, or anywhere else in the Universe for that matter, would immediately disprove and discredit the Holy Christian Bible and indeed all other earthly religions. The eventual demise of mankind's myths that have been around for thousands of years are a prerequisite to progress and future growth as a species, eventually leaving this little blue marble and taking our rightful place in the universe.
Another illustration from fiction is Dragon's Egg.
Really though, what matters for "life" is that whatever the substrate is is able to store information - DNA in our case - and have an ecosystem of related ways to raise and lower energy states in appropriate materials. If both those conditions are met then the process a specific set of material changes with can be called "alive."
Shh.
" Can anyone provide a real answer to the question? "
For the same reason we maintain research settlements in Antarctica. Finding life in any other place would tell us a lot about the conditions in which any ecosystem and its species can survive. There would be intense study of what any species there might have in common with Earthly life, both to check for any proof of the panspermia hypothesis and to extend the extremophile envelope in which life can exist.
Can anyone explain how this research impacts anyone in any substantial way
We explore because that's what humans do, those instincts have served us well and helped us climb to the top of the food chain. Also I think you mean "practical" rather than "substantial" because finding ET will have substantial philosophical impacts on billions of people, but probably won't have any immediate practical use..
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Why do we keep getting these articles about Europa devoid of any new science? Let me know when someone actually gets some new measurements or, for Christ’s sake, sends a probe to collect samples.
The idea has been floating around scientific minds for more than a decade
More than a decade? As I recall this was a major plot element of 2010, Odyssey Two, published in 1982. No doubt the idea originated considerably earlier. So, more than three decades at least.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Do you really think everyone who is religious would just declare "Well, there's life on another planet, I guess God doesn't exist"? Of course not. They'll just say that God created that life also but the Bible was detailing the creation of life on Earth. The discovery of alien life won't mean much for them.
For scientists, though, the discovery of alien life would be an enormous discovery. We already know a lot about evolution, biology, etc, but all of our data points come from one source. This would be an entirely different source to examine. Would life on Europa have cell structures like ours or totally different? Would they have DNA or another information storing mechanism? Would they have eyes similar to ours, completely different, or no eyes at all? (Life in Europa's waters might be dark and so no eyes might be needed - or perhaps their eyes evolved to "see" certain forms of radiation.) The scientific advances from even the simplest life forms would be amazing.
For everyone else, the benefits would come down the road. With a greater understanding of biology and evolution, we might be able to design better treatments for diseases or fix genetic-based ailments.
Plus, there's the "coolness" factor of discovering that we're not alone in the Universe.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
All four Galilean moons are named after Zeus' (Jupiter's) lovers.
In 2007, the economic losses from crime in the US were $15 billion. A whopping $179 billion more was spent on police, legal proceedings, prisons, etc. In other words, we lose over $200 billion every year to crime.
Now, the percentage of crimes committed by illegal aliens is surprisingly hard to obtain — federal government is unwilling to keep an officially tally (maybe, Trump will fix this). But the sentencing statistics say: "Twelve percent of murder sentences, 20 percent of kidnapping sentences and 16 percent of drug trafficking sentences are meted out to illegal immigrants."
Maybe, that's an overestimate by those nasty racists at FauxNoos and the real figure is "only" 10%. If we could get rid of that, we'd be able to afford another NASA with the savings... But even if the money went to building the wall instead, as you suggested, we'd break even — just have fewer murders and kidnappings.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Uranus did.
Table-ized A.I.
We learn useful things like antibiotics all the time studying Earth life. The amount of things we could learn studying alien life are incalculable. Small example: alternative metabolisms could be used to efficiently make chemicals or extract minerals from substrate where Earth life would not be able to.
He has no choice ultimately. Science has disproven free will. His posting, as yours, was set at the moment of the creation of the universe.
There may not be true free will, but you are not accounting for choice.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
This statement — unsupported by any citations, BTW — is irrelevant to my point. Even if they are less crime-prone on average, they are a source of crime anyway.
We can not get rid of native criminals by deporting them anywhere, but we can deport the folks, who have entered this country illegally (and already have this "original sin" to their name).
It may not stop that entirely, but it will reduce it, that's for sure. 15 years ago, when Israel was building its much derided wall, similar predictions of failure were made.
But the walls work:
According to a 2006 estimate cited by Slate (the article itself is hardly sympathetic to the idea, BTW), an Israel-kind of wall stretching for 2000 miles would cost $6.4 bln (or about 1/3rd the annual cost of NASA). And we may not even need it that high and sophisticated — because, unlike Israel, we aren't facing an enemy bent on our destruction... Nor are there any border-disputes with Mexico — the other complication of their project.
My eight year old would already recognize this rhetorical trick as one used only by crooks and liars. Your parents should not have allowed you access to the Internet until you've read up on classic literature...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Ocean chemistry is earth-like-- complete with all the plastic trash and oil and other debris?!
You are wrong. It's the person making an absurd claim who needs to substantiate it. Say, if we have two competing claims such as "there is a dragon behind that door" and "no there is not". Only one of those two people is really compelled to produce evidence.
So, for example, the Israeli wall is 18ft tall and made of concrete, plus the buried portion. Concrete is a heavy material, so a quick estimate gives about one ton of weight per linear foot of barrier. Assuming that we use local quarries within 100 miles of each section at a standard shipping cost of $0.05 per ton mile, you get an average of $2.50 shipping cost per linear foot (assuming there is a welt built road to get there in the first place). All of this is basic common sense and well within the grasp of someone who has a mental age over 8yrs.
You on the other hand like to believe in dragons no matter what. As I said, there is no cure for that and no, it is not my responsibility to dissuade you from your ignorant belief.
After they said only God could create organic compounds, the first organic compound synthesized was appropriately urea. That did not change their mind.
Actually, I was aware of a somewhat different story.
Jupiter's moons are sometimes collectively referred to as "Medicean moons". Galileo chose that name to express gratitude towards his patron/sponsor, the Medici family.
`Galileo's dream` by KSR, is a work of fiction that covers that period of his life and the process of discovering the moons, naming them, and so on. You might enjoy this book.
The saddest poem
Many of the crimes in the US are committed by illegal immigrants — an indisputable fact, even if we can not agree on the exact figures.
False.
Saying its indisputable doesn't make it so.
There are what, 10mil illegal immigrants?
Compared to 320mil legal residents?
And you expect us to believe they commit more crimes than legal residents?
Even as a percentage that just isnt supported...anywhere.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1742...
Oh gee. Looks like they aren't connected after all.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/th...
Doh, not there either.
http://openborders.info/hispan...
Damn.
Still more numbers.
so much for "indisputable".
That building a border-wall would greatly reduce their numbers — indisputably proven by Israel's border wall.
Really? Indisputably? Again?
Ok...here we go:
The wall has done very little to stop attacks or crossings.
Even Israel's own right wing factions acknowledge the wall has played little part and is ineffective.
That credit goes to waning support for violence, and the ability of the Israeli Intelligence to disrupt them.
The real reason for the wall is to further expand the territory they have, since possession is 9/10 the law.
http://972mag.com/wave-of-stab...
The Second Intifada ended for a number of reasons, only one of which was the separation barrier. That becomes especially clear when you look at how little of the barrier had actually been constructed by the time the attacks stopped.
The violence of the Second Intifada wound down because Israeli intelligence managed to wear down armed Palestinian groups. Popular Palestinian support for the violent uprising slowly dwindled due to the painful consequences, namely Israeli military operations, sieges, closures and curfews, which affected more and more of Palestinian society with little to show for their suffering. And finally, momentum simply fell off; the First Intifada also lasted for roughly five years before slowly coming to a halt.
Even a 10% reduction in crime will pay for the wall within one year. Maybe, the 10% figure is exaggerated, but 1% is certainly reasonable. So the wall will pay off in 10 years instead — still a big win.
No, it's not reasonable.
And you've clearly ignored upkeep costs.
The wall Trump wants would cost a minimum of 30 billion to build.
that's just in materials, and does not include labor or logistics. which would easily be 2/3 or more of the total project cost.
so to build out you're talking ~70-90 billion.
(All that....and defeating it as simple as spending ~30$ at Home Depot on a ladder.)
The harsh desert sun and wind would quickly put it into poor shape, so regularly maintence is a must.
maintenance costs alone would exceed the initial build cost after only 7 years. so annualized that's ~10 billion a year (at 70b build cost).
plus, because walls are stupid-easy to defeat with ladders and tunnels, you're still going to have to man it, which means even more border agents, cameras, monitoring equipment than we currently have. so thats even more money.
So, even going conservatively, 10 year cost total comes to 170billion.
Annually, crime costs ~15b in economic losses, and ~180b in government spending fighting it.
That's ~200b a year.
So no, you're not paying it off after 10 years.
Or ever really.
And thats again ignoring that the wall will not reduce crime anyway because your entire premise is that immigration is the source of the majority of crime, whic
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
What if life actually started on Earth and found it's why to Europa due to meteor bombardment on Earth before the dinosaurs. Wouldn't you like to know if you have neighbours and if those neighbours are related?
Just remember that wifi that you most likely used to post your comment was created by Astronomers to do obscure star stuff, and it netted CSIRO 450$M of royalties, because it changed people's lives. http://www.theaustralian.com.a...
The internet itself was "something that won't change anyone's life" when it was built in the 1970's.
That is what basic science is all about. Discovery for curiosity's sake. If your child is dying of zika or malaria or ebola and a cure is found you might be grateful for the scientist who stumbled upon the answer by doing something completely different, or because they used software built by geologists or astronomers. Astronomy has also influenced cancer research, because software to identify stars can also be used to identify tumours. Astronomy is always valuable. New weather satellites that will better predict storms and flooding will save many lives in years to come.
The poor country Bolivia now has a satellite, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., which enables Andean farmers to communicate with each other and their markets - improving their personal income by helping them bypass expensive middle merchants.
I challenge you to compare your own country's research spending and compare it to spending on pet food or candy. You should be horrified at the result.