Checkout the movie Europa Report to feed your SciFi fantasies.
Second this. Excellent random movie selection on Netflix.
First water plume seen firing from Jupiter moon Europa
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Re: First water plume seen firing from Jupiter moon Europa
#12This is an awesome phenomenon. Yesterday we had a post re panspermia: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6888412 Now think of an Europa with simple bacteria living in the water under the ice. These events are like cosmic sporulation: long strings of frozen droplets that could contain organisms, ejaculated into space like spores in the wind.
I'm (existentially/cosmically) aroused!!
Re: First water plume seen firing from Jupiter moon Europa
#13This is an awesome phenomenon. Yesterday we had a post re panspermia: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6888412 Now think of an Europa with simple bacteria living in the water under the ice. These events are like cosmic sporulation: long strings of frozen droplets that could contain organisms, ejaculated into space like spores in the wind.
And promptly sterilized. Unfortunately most plausible life forms require meters of soil/rock surrounding them to survive the harsh space environment (probably more in the vicinity of Jupiter).
Re: First water plume seen firing from Jupiter moon Europa
#14Please forgive my ignorance. What makes Europa more likely to contain life than other moons thought to contain oceans like Callisto, Ganymede, Titan, Enceladus ... ? [1] [1] http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18lqil4sqeremjpg/original.jp... [2] [2] http://io9.com/5827649/a-map-of-all-the-water-in-the-solar-s...
Enormous oceans of liquid water, with internal tidal heat and protection from harsh surface environment?
Re: First water plume seen firing from Jupiter moon Europa
#15For those expecting to see an actual image, this is the closest thing to a photo from NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/water-vapor-over-europa/ They note: "Hubble didn't photograph plumes, but spectroscopically detected auroral emissions from oxygen and hydrogen." Full press release from NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-europa-water-vapo... For an amazing photo of Europa with Io's volcanic pl…
does this mean it's pure conjecture that it was a water plume? my idea of a water plume would say that it's sub surface ocean water getting ejected out of the surface. this evidence seems like it could have been water knocked up by a meteor impact or some other mechanism to get the surface ice into orbit.
Re: First water plume seen firing from Jupiter moon Europa
#16Please forgive my ignorance. What makes Europa more likely to contain life than other moons thought to contain oceans like Callisto, Ganymede, Titan, Enceladus ... ? [1] [1] http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18lqil4sqeremjpg/original.jp... [2] [2] http://io9.com/5827649/a-map-of-all-the-water-in-the-solar-s...
read the 2010 novel by authur clarke. he goes into some detail about how it might work
Re: First water plume seen firing from Jupiter moon Europa
#17For those expecting to see an actual image, this is the closest thing to a photo from NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/water-vapor-over-europa/ They note: "Hubble didn't photograph plumes, but spectroscopically detected auroral emissions from oxygen and hydrogen." Full press release from NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-europa-water-vapo... For an amazing photo of Europa with Io's volcanic pl…
does this mean it's pure conjecture that it was a water plume? my idea of a water plume would say that it's sub surface ocean water getting ejected out of the surface. this evidence seems like it could have been water knocked up by a meteor impact or some other mechanism to get the surface ice into orbit.
it's my understanding that the gravitational "torsion" from Jupiter alone is enough to do all sorts of things (like keep a planet thermally active)
Re: First water plume seen firing from Jupiter moon Europa
#18As warm as the word vapor may sound it is actually really cold. Europa's oceans, if they exist, are -50°C and lower.
Hmm. I did not think that the temperature of Europa's oceans (below their probable icy crust) has been well-constrained. To the extent that it has, I think the subsurface temperature is expected to be much greater than -50C in many places (the mechanism is tidal heating).
There is a general belief that Europa is likely to have significant liquid water below its icy surface. The phase diagram for water (first image at http://www1.lsbu.ac.uk/water/phase.html) does not allow liquid water at -50C = 223K, no matter what the pressure.
Atmospheric pressure on Earth is about 0.1 MPa, and gravity on Europa is about 1/6 of Earth. The highest pressure in Earth's oceans is about 1000x atmospheric pressure (100 MPa). Across this range (3 orders of magnitude), the melting point of H2O is pretty constant, 0C or a little below (see the linked phase diagram).
My conclusion: liquid water implies temperatures of at least 0C in the relevant pressure range.
Re: First water plume seen firing from Jupiter moon Europa
#19As warm as the word vapor may sound it is actually really cold. Europa's oceans, if they exist, are -50°C and lower.
Hmm. I did not think that the temperature of Europa's oceans (below their probable icy crust) has been well-constrained. To the extent that it has, I think the subsurface temperature is expected to be much greater than -50C in many places (the mechanism is tidal heating). There is a general belief that Europa is likely to have significant liquid water below its icy surface. The phase diagram for water (first image at…
Re: First water plume seen firing from Jupiter moon Europa
#20Please forgive my ignorance. What makes Europa more likely to contain life than other moons thought to contain oceans like Callisto, Ganymede, Titan, Enceladus ... ? [1] [1] http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18lqil4sqeremjpg/original.jp... [2] [2] http://io9.com/5827649/a-map-of-all-the-water-in-the-solar-s...
I believe there's more evidence for an ocean in Europa than the other Galilean moons, and the ice sheet on top is thought to be substantially thinner. As for the moons of Saturn, I suspect Enceladus gets less interest simply because it's far less accessible, and if Titan has life it won't be remotely like any sort of life we're used to, and may be quite difficult to detect.