Sunday, November 20, 2011

Wa†er On Europa? Europa Becomes the Fame Planet

It's one of our own moons - Europa, which has become The Fame Planet. Jupiter should be proud to present one of it's own as a possible suspect for the presence of water on such a distant orb of light. After data was collected from NASA planetary mission, it appears that a body of water was found underneath the icy surface of the moon, which astronomers believe that there is a "significant exchange" between Europa's frigid, icy top and the icy ocean beneath it. Of course, this brought in NASA's interest, becasue they are always trying to find extraterrestrial life. NASA says that this could be a "potential habitat" for more life, and one NASA scientist has raced to conclusions. Listen to this, written in an article by Thaindian News:
One Scientist has suggested that at least three million tons of fish-like creatures could theoretically live and breathe under Jupiter’s moon Europa’s global ocean. “I’d be shocked if no life existed on Europa,” said Timothy Shank, a deep-sea molecular ecologist. 
Although this is my opinion, I believe that this scientist has raced to conclusions! This ocean, though, has been known for a while of its "water," but new insights have been found after recent research. It has been found that "the extraterrestrial ocean is currently being fed more than a hundred times more oxygen than previous models had suggested...," meaning to us that life could be possible. [Although the information presented above is from 2009, the same resolutions have been derived from this past week's articles].

Found on Washington Post
 "Washington, Nov 17 (IANS) NASA’s Galileo spacecraft has found evidence of water beneath the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa, researchers said." “Now, we see evidence that it’s a thick ice shell that can mix vigorously and new evidence for giant shallow lakes. That could make Europa and its ocean more habitable,” said Britney Schmidt, lead author of the study and fellow at the Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas, Austin. “If Europa is habitable, we need to get material from the surface down into the deep interior, down into the ocean,” Schmidt said. Because Europa is a cold, icy moon, freezing and refreezing of ice takes place constantly, along with melting. “It’s a vigorous process,” Schmidt said. “Material is getting thrown around. Icebergs are flipping over. Brines are going up and coming back down.”

Read more on THAINDIAN NEWS
Washington Post

Credit: NASA