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NASA’s Webb finds carbon source on surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa

webbtelescope.org

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Re: NASA’s Webb finds carbon source on surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa

#71

Post by Electricniko »

grecy wrote: post #4

Can Webb image Europa?

As others have said, you're looking at the image. We'll have to wait for a bit before we get some really good images of Europa. From Google:

NASA's Europa Clipper is the first dedicated mission to explore a world with a global ocean, other than Earth. The spacecraft is scheduled to launch in October 2024 and will arrive at Europa in 2030. The mission will study Europa's surface and interior to determine if it has the ingredients to support life. The spacecraft will make about 50 close flybys of Europa while orbiting Jupiter.

Also see some of the images from Juno if you want a better look at the moon.

Re: NASA’s Webb finds carbon source on surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa

#72

Post by adolph »

slg wrote: post #14

This is obviously a ginormous leap from this announcement and just a tangent sparked by it. The possibility of intelligent life developing on a world like Europa encrusted with what is effectively a miles think solid atmosphere has always been one of my favorite feasible sci-fi hypotheticals. Could you imagine how that would impact their culture? Would they even know there is anything on the other side of the ice? Th…

I don't want to spoil anything but intelligent life that evolves under high pressure depth is explored in Project Hail Mary by Any Weir (author of recent popular culture book then movie The Martian).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary

https://www.amazon.com/Project-Hail-Mary-Andy-Weir/dp/059313...

Re: NASA’s Webb finds carbon source on surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa

#74

Post by jonathankoren »

slg wrote: post #14

This is obviously a ginormous leap from this announcement and just a tangent sparked by it. The possibility of intelligent life developing on a world like Europa encrusted with what is effectively a miles think solid atmosphere has always been one of my favorite feasible sci-fi hypotheticals. Could you imagine how that would impact their culture? Would they even know there is anything on the other side of the ice? Th…

Apparently the ring builders in The Expanse books were supposedly squids from an ice encrusted planet/moon.

It is an odd idea of how they’d even discover it. Assuming their natural habitat is a thermal vent on the ocean floor, they’d need pressure suits or probes to travel up to shell. Then they’d need to essentially create a Kola Superdeep Borehole in the sky, and there’s no obvious reason to do that, especially since drilling down into rock would be easier, and certainly more lucrative. (ie there aren’t any valuable materials in ice). This is assuming they don’t discover a 15 km deep fissure, which seems unlikely because I don’t think individual fissures discovered are that deep, all fissures are transitory, and probably randomly distributed. Sure a seismic network in the sky would could find evidence of fissures, but why are you building a seismic network in the sky?

Re: NASA’s Webb finds carbon source on surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa

#75

Post by abracadaniel »

sgt wrote: post #26
abracadaniel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comparison, the furthest we've dug down is about 8 miles, and Europa's ice crust is estimated to be 10-15 miles. So, yeah that would be like us getting discovered by mole people from nearly twice the depth we're capable of reaching. It's fun to think about what a civilization on Europa would think about their world. You can go up, but it gets colder and the pressure gets lower. It'd be like trying to go to space,…

No need to dig, you just melt yourself downwards. It's not exactly like digging through rocks on Earth.

In this case, the digging is from the perspective of a Europan living under the ice, and having to dig to go up.

Re: NASA’s Webb finds carbon source on surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa

#76

Post by gpm »

poopbutt7 wrote: post #33

Is the significance of CO2's presence 1) it's necessary ingredient for (our) life, 2) it's a likely biproduct of life, or both?

Note that mars's atmosphere has more CO2 in it (per unit volume! Despite having almost no atmosphere) than Earth's does. Definitely not 2.

Re: NASA’s Webb finds carbon source on surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa

#77

Post by adzm »

mikeInAlaska wrote: post #66
sph wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, the only thing I wish to see before I die is a submarine mission to Europa or Ganymede. It would be even more mind blowing and an amazing achievement for humanity, and the search for extraterrestrial life. That, and the dragonfly-helicopter-thing on Titan. Have you ever seen the Sun set on a methane lake? It's time for a rewatch of Europa Report (2013).

A Europa submarine mission is a good bucket list, but don't sell us too short. * Humans on Mars * Room temperature Superconductors and their effects on humanity. * Sustained Fusion Power for the masses. * General Artificial Intelligence * Human brain-computer interface. * Full reversal of climate change. * Extended human lifespan. * Curing all forms of cancer. * Universal translator for all human languages. * Discove…

> Universal translator for all human languages.

We are pretty much already there, though there is room to improve, it's an amazing accomplishment though that I think we take for granted.

Re: NASA’s Webb finds carbon source on surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa

#78

Post by evrimoztamur »

mrguyorama wrote: post #64
superhumanuser wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would liquid pool up as you melt the ice? I guess you'd need to pump it out. Is that even possible at that depth? The liquid might boil on the way up.

Your craft is denser than the liquid, so you just kinda drop through it and keep melting.

Doesn't the heat you have to produce increase as you go deeper?

Re: NASA’s Webb finds carbon source on surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa

#79

Post by philomath_mn »

ceejayoz wrote: post #70
philomath_mn wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the conspiracy theorists: this is the same reason why we can't just point Webb at the moon and get pictures of the lunar landing sites. In terms of arcseconds of the Webb's FOV, the moon landing site is much smaller than these distant galaxies (which blows my mind just how big those distant "objects" are).

We can image the lunar landing sites with lunar orbiters, though. Footsteps and all! https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.htm...

Right -- they are a bit closer than Webb :D

Re: NASA’s Webb finds carbon source on surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa

#80

Post by hermitcrab »

dylan604 wrote: post #45
abracadaniel wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comparison, the furthest we've dug down is about 8 miles, and Europa's ice crust is estimated to be 10-15 miles. So, yeah that would be like us getting discovered by mole people from nearly twice the depth we're capable of reaching. It's fun to think about what a civilization on Europa would think about their world. You can go up, but it gets colder and the pressure gets lower. It'd be like trying to go to space,…

What's the pressure like at that depth? That seems like it would have some implications to be dealt with

IIRC the pressure at the bottom of Europa's theorized ocean in similar to at the bottom of earth's ocean. The greater depth is compensated by the lower graviation field.
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