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Jupiter's Watery Moon, Europa, Is Covered in Table Salt

posted by chromas on Thursday June 13 2019, @10:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the pepper-not-found dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

CNet:

Europa, the fourth-biggest moon orbiting gas giant Jupiter, hides a salty, liquid ocean underneath its icy shell and thus, may harbor the ingredients necessary for life. A new study has found that Europa's surface is full of sodium chloride -- table salt -- and concludes the hidden ocean underneath Europa's ice may be more similar to Earth's oceans than previously imagined.

The study, published Wednesday in Science Advances by researchers at Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, show for the first time how yellow patches on Europa's surface, first noticed by NASA proves Voyager and Galileo decades ago, actually indicate the presence of sodium chloride.

Excellent! The astronaut who catches the first Europan fish won't have to send away for seasoning.

Also at Caltech.

Sodium chloride on the surface of Europa (open, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaw7123) (DX)

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @10:50PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 13 2019, @10:50PM (#855335)

    2001: A Space Odyssey and wondering if there was galactic irony in there being life actually on Europa :)

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by stormwyrm on Friday June 14 2019, @03:10AM

    by stormwyrm (717) on Friday June 14 2019, @03:10AM (#855397) Journal
    Arthur C. Clarke consciously chose Europa since even at the time he wrote the book and screenplay (1968) Europa was already thought to be a good candidate for possible life elsewhere in the solar system. Clarke was well known for mostly writing sci fi that was at least consistent with the known science and technology of the time, or reasonable extrapolations thereof. So there's no irony there.
    --
    Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.