Sujet : Re: Expedition to Europa
De : blockedofcourse (at) *nospam* foo.invalid (Don Y)
Groupes : sci.electronics.designDate : 27. Jun 2024, 23:17:13
Autres entêtes
Organisation : A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID : <v5kkt2$2trbe$1@dont-email.me>
References : 1
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On 6/27/2024 11:39 AM, Joe Gwinn wrote:
But ever since NASA’s Voyager flybys in 1979 and the flagship
1995-2003 Galileo mission to Jupiter, scientists have assembled an
increasingly convincing body of evidence that beneath Europa's frozen
surface lies a massive saltwater ocean containing 2-3 times the water
in all the oceans on Earth.
IIRC, didn't Clarke pose the same possibility a few (4) decades back in one
of the "2001" sequels: "All these worlds are yours -- except Europa..."
Scientists suspect that Europa’s sea, which lies about 60 mi. beneath
the surface, remains liquid due to the heat of tidal flexing as
Jupiter’s gravity stretches and squeezes the moon. Europa, with a
diameter of about 1,900 mi.—slightly smaller than Earth’s Moon—circles
Jupiter every 3.5 days. Like Earth’s Moon, Europa is tidally locked,
resulting in one hemisphere always facing Jupiter. Tidal forces on
Europa are about 1,000 times stronger than the Moon’s effect on Earth.
Europa’s surface is young—just 40-90 million years old— but its inner
ocean is believed to have existed for billions of years, long enough
for the chemistry of life to evolve. And while there is no evidence of
life on Europa, scientists suggest the moon may have environments
similar to Earth’s deep-ocean hydrothermal vents, where unique
ecosystems thrive despite extreme temperatures and pressures, toxic
minerals and no sunlight.
Observations by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 2012 and 2014 also
suggest water from inside Europa may intermittently vent into space as
plumes, similar to what the Cassini spacecraft has observed on
Saturn’s moon Endeladus. Astronomers estimate Europa’s plumes rise
about 125 mi. into space before raining material back down onto the
moon’s surface.
Most big librarys carry AW.
.<https://europa.nasa.gov/mission/about/>
If it turns out that there is life in the ocean of Europa, which has
existed for something like four billion years, it supports the general
idea of "random but inevitable" theories of Abiogenesis.
_Remembrance of Earth's Past_ has an interesting take on the whole
notion behind an "empty" universe. It's a tedious read (mainly for
me coming from a non-chinese culture... just keeping track of the
characters is difficult) but has some good ideas to chew on at its core.