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posted by martyb on Monday September 26 2016, @11:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the mark-your-calendar dept.

Watch here: http://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

NASA Teleconference About Europa

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-to-hold-media-call-on-evidence-of-surprising-activity-on-europa

NASA will host a teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 26, to present new findings from images captured by the agency's Hubble Space Telescope of Jupiter's icy moon, Europa.

Astronomers will present results from a unique Europa observing campaign that resulted in surprising evidence of activity that may be related to the presence of a subsurface ocean on Europa.

NASA currently plans to perform additional flybys of Europa and put a lander on the surface as part of the Europa Clipper mission. The ESA's Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer will also fly by Europa twice, but focus on Ganymede.

Nasa to Reveal 'Surprising' Activity On Jupiter's Moon Europa

There's something going on beneath the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa. But what?

NASA teased a "surprising" announcement for Monday, based on Hubble Space Telescope images of the celestial body, which many experts believe could contain a subsurface ocean, even possibly some form of life.

The US space agency has already proclaimed that Europa has "strong evidence for an ocean of liquid water beneath its crust and which could host conditions favorable for life."

At Monday's announcement, "astronomers will present results from a unique Europa observing campaign that resulted in surprising evidence of activity that may be related to the presence of a subsurface ocean," it said in a statement.

The announcement will be made at a news conference at 2 pm (1800 GMT) Monday featuring Paul Hertz, NASA's director of astrophysics, and William Sparks, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday September 26 2016, @01:40PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday September 26 2016, @01:40PM (#406631) Journal

    https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=15060&cid=389581#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]

    Life could probably find a way in 2g-2.5g conditions, and that could mean a wide range of planets have a mass suitable for life (say, 0.5-8 Earth masses). Once a planet becomes a mini-Neptune (10 Earth masses?), that's where the trouble might start. Also, the boundary between giant rocky planet and mini gas giant might be a little flexible and based on protoplanetary conditions.

    The amount of water could be interesting as well. Some exoplanets are covered in miles of liquid water, with no land. Life might be able to form in that condition, but good luck advancing to building printing presses, radio towers and spaceships if there is no dry land (an icy region floating on the water doesn't count - there would be no trees or iron/stone/uranium/etc. there).

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  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday September 26 2016, @02:29PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday September 26 2016, @02:29PM (#406656) Journal

    Life might be able to form in that condition, but good luck advancing to building printing presses, radio towers and spaceships if there is no dry land (an icy region floating on the water doesn't count - there would be no trees or iron/stone/uranium/etc. there).

    We know that to be true on Earth, but does that preclude the development of technology in an aqueous environment? I'm not so sure. On Earth, aquatic species grow intricate structures (sponges, coral). There are also aquatic species that are quite intelligent (whales, dolphins, octopi). There's also the observation that creatures tend to use what's available; TIMTOWTDI. It would be extraordinary to discover intelligent sub-aquatic life that harnesses an organic technology whereby they direct other species to construct their tools and structures for them, using the minerals in solution.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Monday September 26 2016, @07:51PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 26 2016, @07:51PM (#406728)

    Life could probably find a way in 2g-2.5g conditions

    Angle of repose is mostly independent of gravity so the landscape would look more or less similar.

    However potential energy will not be denied and the impact damage of falling in 2G will be much worse than falling in 1G it would scale with the square of acceleration.

    That will have two interesting life features, one is rivers will gouge the earth more violently making a more treacherous landscape and the other is large bipedalism is not likely a survivable thing, long term. Maybe something human sized could evolve but it would be the local equivalent of megafauna, biggest thing on the plains. Likely that means has to be herbivore which means it'll be pretty dumb.

    Going the other direction the earth is pretty marginal for long term water at 1G and much less you end up with mars, normal ionization and dissociation in the upper atmosphere combined with low escape velocity for hydrogen in lower G means all your water blows away in a 100 million years or whatever.

    There are other problems with solar cycles and geology and gravity where you can't just cheat and say "OK evolution happens 10x slower" because due to solar growth cycle we only have a couple hundred milliion years plus or minus the usual snowball earth episodes before the sun makes life untenable here, and 10x slower rate would mean the alpha predator over the entire life of the planet would only be a trilobite or maybe only a protist of some type.

    So using known biochemistry anything smaller than 1G implies a desert planet "dune" without much life, and anything larger than 1G implies ever smaller herbivore megafauna leading to smaller (dumber) carnivore/omnivore life. 1G seems to lead to life where a tiny fraction wonders about the effect of 1G so if we're not a lucky local maxima we're at least close to it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 27 2016, @02:04AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 27 2016, @02:04AM (#406809)

      it would scale with the square of acceleration

      Potential energy goes as g not g^2. Likewise, impact velocity goes as sqrt(g).