The Hidden Ocean of Europa 2

Clip 2 from the 'The Hidden Ocean of Europa' lecture, part of the von Karman Lecture Series. Date- Nov 07. Source- http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures/nov07.cfm

'Jupiter's moon Europa may be a habitable world. Evidence points strongly to a global subsurface ocean beneath an ice shell. The paucity of large craters argues for a surface age of only 60 million years, implying that Europa is still geologically active. Tidal flexing and nonsynchronous rotation of the floating ice shell generate stresses that can fracture and deform the surface to create Europa's troughs, ridges, and bands. Europa's astonishing geology and astrobiological potential make it a top priority for spacecraft exploration.'

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• europa
• saturn
• jet
• propulsion
• laboratory
• nasa
• cassini
• huygens

[LifeIsABigPuzzle]

He might think that there may only be microbes swimming around underneath the surface. But Alan Boss who wrote "We Are Not Alone" thinks that there might be shrimp sized creatures swimming around underneath the surface.

[Videos4USArmy]

@WheelSlip8 Big difference in distances as far as Mars and Jupiter goes. 

[Zurround100]

WheelSlip 8 I agree with you in part BUT Europa is WAY further away and we would have to dig through a lot of ice to find the life IF its there, mars exploration is less expensive its dollars and cents.

[WheelSlip8]

Mars is facinating but why in gods name are we exploring a dead planet and not the watery world of Europa? Enough of spending billions on a dead planet. Let's put our money in the real holy grail.

[Hemitris]

@Simpson654 also, the magnetic field may be huge, but there hasn't been any studies made that suggest magnetic fields affect the conditions of life for organisms. Not as far as I know anyways.

[Hemitris]

@Simpson654 sorry, can you rephrase "The theories of the surface conditions didn't actually account for there being over 90 earth atmospheres at the surface."?

[walkedreader]

When the first life evolved on Earth there wasn't oxygen to begin with. So a paucity of oxygen doesn't preclude life evolving on Europa. It just precludes the level of organization that we're used to viewing on the macro scale in life.

[Simpson654]

@Pwner0770

That is true, on Earth you can find micro-organisms like bacteria and archaia in the most inhospitable places, inside rocks in the Antarctic, miles underground in coal mines, at the bottom of the oceans, etc., getting all their energy not from sunlight but geothermally from minerals. These anaerobic life forms are actually of the greatest interest to life's origin researchers and astrobiologists, because 4 billion years ago the earth was more like a volcanic hothouse without oxygen.

[Simpson654]

@Hemitris

The immense magnetic radiation field of Jupiter. The two Pioneer spacecrafts were equipped with radiation shielding more than adequate for it. They learned from the mistakes of the USSR actually, when the first Venera lander probes were sent down to Venus, and they all failed. The theories of the surface conditions didn't actually account for there being over 90 earth atmospheres at the surface. The gravitational and magnetic forces near Jupiter are huge.

[m47orion]

super doku