Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

webbtelescope.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 278 posts

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

#151

Post by redundantly »

wddkcs wrote: post #142
postmodest wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sort of responses to climate alarms are always the most disingenuous. We are consuming water from places where it has been relatively static, at rates far beyond its natural replenishment rate. THAT'S the issue. Yes, this is a closed system, and the human circulatory system is a closed system. But it's bad if you drain the blood from your brain faster than it is replenished.

It's only bad if there aren't undiscovered sources and/or processes we can use in the future to produce more water. It's technological optimism, not disingenuousness.

Saying there might be fixes for this in the future is also disingenuous.

It's like saying military burn pits are okay because there may be medical advancements in the future that can be used to treat afflicted soldiers.

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

#152

Post by mensetmanusman »

rcpt wrote: post #144
labster wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point 1 above greatly understates the case. Water just sitting in a glass is constantly creating and destroying hydronium and hydroxide ions, and bare protons. Not to mention the carbon dioxide that gets dissolved as carbonic acid which can dissociate to bicarbonate. On the other hand, its tough to talk about new water because under thermodynamics, all atoms of the same isotope at the same energy state are completely…

If a few water molecules are destroyed and replaced created over a long time then is it still the same glass of water?

Nothing is ever the same at room temperature if you are counting atoms.

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

#153

Post by d-lisp »

BurningFrog wrote: post #131
monlockandkey wrote: post #21

Europa is definitely the most exciting part of the solar system that sparks imagination. Literally 100s of miles of pitch black ocean with thermal vents, ripe for life. Getting kiddy thinking about the leviathan sized aliens roaming the deep ocean of Europa. Does anyone else feel this way?

If it turns out to not have life, we should introduce Earth life and let evolution run amok there. I realize some conservationists disagree.

This could be the cause of our presence

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

#154

Post by Pxtl »

monlockandkey wrote: post #21

Europa is definitely the most exciting part of the solar system that sparks imagination. Literally 100s of miles of pitch black ocean with thermal vents, ripe for life. Getting kiddy thinking about the leviathan sized aliens roaming the deep ocean of Europa. Does anyone else feel this way?

I mean if it's confined to geothermal vents I'd think bugs would be the absolute outside limit for most complicated life, and realistically it's probably prokaryotic life if anything.

That would still be mindblowing, and also horrifying when you think about the Fermi paradox.

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

#155

Post by alluro2 »

adolph wrote: post #72
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...

Thanks for the recommendation, seems excellent

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

#156

Post by Figs »

ricktdotorg wrote: post #126
Electricniko wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> scheduled to launch in October 2024 and will arrive at Europa in 2030 wow, when you see dates like this it really puts things into perspective! a six year trip! any idea of how much of the trip is acceleration vs. deceleration?

Not exactly what you're asking, but it might be helpful to know that they're not planning to take a direct flight there. NASA is planning to use gravity assists off of Mars in Feb 2025 and Earth in Dec 2026. They can launch it MUCH more cheaply that way but it'll take about 3 years longer than a direct flight.

There's an animation of the planned trajectory on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Animation_of_Europa_Clipp...

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

#157

Post by alluro2 »

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...

You obviously mean the fake lunar orbiters. And those footsteps are not human anyway, it's the Moonfoot. /s :)

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

#158

Post by alluro2 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #140
keepamovin wrote: post #128

Linda Moulton-Howe covered some testimony from "insiders" that alleged that there is an octopus type species living under the ice covered ocean of Europa. I have no idea which Earthfiles episode this was in, but cool if true.

Did they use a secret trillion dollar X ray glass telescope to peer through Europa's miles thick ice sheet and see?

Of course not - much more traditional methods - interrogation of their spies on Earth, cuttlefish.

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

#159

Post by whimsicalism »

wishfish wrote: post #94
monlockandkey wrote: post #21

Europa is definitely the most exciting part of the solar system that sparks imagination. Literally 100s of miles of pitch black ocean with thermal vents, ripe for life. Getting kiddy thinking about the leviathan sized aliens roaming the deep ocean of Europa. Does anyone else feel this way?

Don't forget about Enceladus. Also a massive ocean with the added benefit of shooting enormous geysers into space. Would be wonderful if our solar system had at least 3 worlds with ocean life. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/saturn-moons/enceladus

or terrible news a la great filter arguments

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

#160

Post by squeaky-clean »

wddkcs wrote: post #142
postmodest wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sort of responses to climate alarms are always the most disingenuous. We are consuming water from places where it has been relatively static, at rates far beyond its natural replenishment rate. THAT'S the issue. Yes, this is a closed system, and the human circulatory system is a closed system. But it's bad if you drain the blood from your brain faster than it is replenished.

It's only bad if there aren't undiscovered sources and/or processes we can use in the future to produce more water. It's technological optimism, not disingenuousness.

That sounds like it's beyond optimum into foolishness. I could possibly win the lottery one day, but I'm not going to live my life as if it's guaranteed.
Post reply on HN