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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @07:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 26 2016, @07:21PM (#406722)

    Point is: We seem to always assume water = life, we look for planets in goldilocks zones, of roughly the same size as Earth, because that's what we know. Sure, maybe there's life on Europa. Meanwhile, what other possibilities have we failed to imagine?

    What do you propose we do to locate things we don't even know we don't know?

    Of course we are still doing basic science to search around for basic knowledge (among other things, see the recent large number of planets outside our solar system which have been discovered in the past 10 years). In the meantime, though, what should we do? Say "hey, this planet has water, let's not bother investigating it because water was essential to life on Earth and that's all old-hat by now. We want something NEW!"