Europa
Europa is the sixth closest moon of Jupiter and is the smallest of the Galilean moons discovered by Galileo. Even though it is the smallest of the Galilean moons, Europa is still the sixth largest of the 181 moons in the solar system.
Europa is a frozen, icy world and is a unique object in the solar system – scientists believe that beneath the frozen layer of ice on Europa’s surface, there is a salt-water ocean in contact with a rocky seafloor. If this is proven to be true, Europa may be a promising place for life to exist beyond Earth.
The moon is named after a phoenician noblewoman who became queen of Crete in Greek mythology.
Europa was a noblewoman which the continent of Europe was named after. Europa was abducted by Zeus – the Greek counterpart for the Roman Jupiter – after the god of the skies transformed into a bull. He took her to the island of Crete to be his lover. She became the queen of Crete and had a number of children with Zeus.
Sources:
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/europa/indepth
http://theplanets.org/europa/
Made using: Celestia & GIMP
#universe #space #nasa #europa #science
If it used to be, I don't think Europa is unique in the solar system any more, to have scientists believe it to feature a subsurface water ocean.
ReplyDeleteBoris Borcic , let me know when you reach Europa. Till then Europa remains my frozen bonbon.
ReplyDeleteBoris Borcic correct. Its certain that it have liquid under the ice, probably liquid water similar to the earth. That is why is of interest as one of the planets for future surveying and search for possible extraterrestrial life, although probably at the level of bacteria or basic proteins all of that only if it have enough worm places in that ocean underneath the crust to support any sort of bacterial life.
ReplyDeleteZeus was quite the playboy wasn't he?
ReplyDeleteMarko Shiva Pavlovic the most intriguing aspect of Europa is ethical. Suppose some supernatural oracle provided us with the certainty that there's no life of any sort in that ocean of Europa. Then our perspective would instantaneously switch from one of being hyper-conscientious about preventing contamination by terrestrial microbes to one of making ourselves accessories to panspermia under the flag of team Earth.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that funny?
Corina Marinescu I am sorry a g+ side-widget glitch ate the record of my complex reaction to your oh so poetic tease, a couple hours back. J'hésite entre "merci" et "bravo" pour résumer mon principal reproche au silence produit.
ReplyDeleteI've got your message Boris...will get back to you ;)
ReplyDeleteWell Boris Borcic the fact s that there are no supernatural things and especially oracles or mythical beings. There might be the Aliens that could be humanoids or whatever other sort of being that could give us some information, which I'm quite sure will note be the case because most of the species we would encounter would be mostly interested in conquering, if we found some beings that just want to explore that is other thing.
ReplyDeleteOk lets get back on subject.
The thing is that if any being in universe which mean an Alien, because every being that is not from planet Earth is extraterrestrial and by that, we have a quite xenophobic word for "outsiders" which is an Alien, so yeah they all would be alien they might be more developed then us etc, but not on any way nor at any moment they could be considered supernatural. There are no supernatural things. Universe have its own laws which are a case study of science we call Physics, so if you understand or study physics you should understand that everything inside of the universe or multiverse, if you do like string theory is bound by those laws, in case of multiverse laws are a bit different as some of the space constants like energy property of empty space.
So yeah argment have a big fallacy and that is your still not understanding that there are no nor ever will be any supernatural things or forces. You watch fantasy too much probably.
And that everything that we can interact with and it lives in the Universe and its not a human race is actually an Alien race. We will probably give them a suitable name once we understand those, either less evolved, either more evolved, or differently evolved or on a different molecules and atoms based lifeforms, non-carbon-water based lifeforms.
The other thing no one and nothing can tell you for sure that in the water of other planet do not exist amino-acids like in places near tectonic plates if they exist there. etc or atleast some basic chemical compounds like the carbon and nitrogen and oxygen atoms.
ReplyDeleteIf you know anything about biology and geology then you should know that earth was a billion years without a life and that was more then a 500 millions of years under water without a life and life start synthesizing under water in conditions which ware good hot enough vents to make some chemical reactions start and first amino-acids start forming.
When you say that we should contaminate them because we just want to speed up things that is not a whole truth even if we spread our microbes there there would pass almost a billion years for any bigger animals to start appearing.
No if we move to the Europe we will need to have a way to make good underwater cities and with temperature that is active there we cant if we dont have a way to crank up the heat which mean either digging to its core or using the radioactive decay to heat up the place. In either way if we move there we do contaminate the area in any way.
Marko Shiva Pavlovic what a rant. Of course supernatural oracles don't exist, that was precisely the point of my use of this word. The implication is that we will likely never acquire perfect certainty that there's no native life in this subsurface ocean, although we may hope for the contrary certainty in the case we discover some life. It's to protect that hope that NASA is so cautious not to take any chance of terrestrial contamination by slating their probes for destruction by collision with the planet.
ReplyDeleteMy point is that if we imagine ourselves convinced there's no life there (a counter-factual) then there's absolutely no questioning that our perspective would be to try to seed this ocean with life -- the opposite of what's our current attitude. Now that's a natural desire which is unlikely to stay subdued if "absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence" plays too long with our nerves.
I agree with that its just the fact, as you say also, that we will never know that for sure.
ReplyDeleteSo my guess is that if we don't find traces of carbon based lifeforms there we will contaminate them once we start exploring it. Just as with any other planet we starat to explore. As long as there is no intelligent life there, need for colonization from human side, and by it trying to remove single point of failure which is the Earth based catastrophe which would wipe out or destroy humanity, will out wage the scientific ideal of not contaminating other planet environments. Its not whether we will contaminate those places or not its about what we will make from it. If the purpose is good and its scientific and its sustained on the part of the planet or in this case moon its ok. As long as we don't start using the outer planets as a place for our bases and fill them with weapons. Which as the thing in the world stay now a very likely future scenario.
Of course Earth need to create a bases and have part of its arsenal, later fleets, on other planets but as long as we don't run on the hostile Aliens we will be better to not make that much of weaponry move to the colonies because they can start rioting too and then we will end up in scifi plot of waging wars against our own people.
Also as I see things NASA is slow facility they do space exploration very slow, they are government funded and government bounded, that is bad, and if our race want to expand and start exploring the Universe we need to move much faster. That is why I think that days of NASA or ESA is coming to an end and that earth beside having a one world government will need to have a United efforts and in education and in the science field with much more time devoted to advancing our science and speeding up exploration.
ReplyDeleteand yeah I say time because we don't need more funds matter a fact money is the root problem of slow advances in science and technology because most of the people became a slaves of a world entertainment industry. Its not a hard science that is moving and deciding where money will go its the interest of the few.
That is very bad.
Also most of the scientists work in science for pure joy of exploring new things and ideas that is why we are not bound by money. Just give a bunch of scientists equipment and enough time feed that with good educational system and you will see exponential growth of development in science and technology.
As long as you provide scientist with good life ad enough of time and equipment to test their ideas there will be fast growth in science and technology.
Marko Shiva Pavlovic Not very focused, are you? To just underline a finer point I was also making and that you bypass by calling for "greater speed" and speaking of "intelligent life" -- assuming ourselves convinced Europa hosts no native microbiology, once considered realistically, the plausible pace and degree of our eventual colonization of that environment will make us see terrestrial microbes -- or versions of terrestrial microbes re-engineered for the purpose -- not as an unavoidable side-effect trailing human colonization, but as advanced representatives of terrestrial life and ourselves that are apt to conquer that ocean long before we can hope to.
ReplyDeleteMarko Shiva Pavlovic Funny, Popular Science published an article on the same topic just a few hours after our conversation yesterday (modulo substitution of Mars to Europa). Synchronicity!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.popsci.com/can-we-bring-life-to-mars
NSA is spying on us and it sends data to the NASA. :P
ReplyDelete