Europa, Jupiter
FOCUS ON EUROPA, PLANETARY SCIENTIST SAYS, February 12 Yogi Berra supposedly suggested that when you come to a fork in the road, you are supposed to take it. That's just what planetary scientists studying the rich data set from the Galileo Mission to the outer solar system are doing now. They're taking the fork. Full story at http://www.physorg.com/news90501027.html -- Looking for life on Jupiter's icy moon Europa http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.nl.html?pid=21989 "While NASA and the European Space Agency focus on Mars rovers and future missions to search for life on the Red Planet, a determined core of scientists is lobbying for equal attention to a place they feel is just as likely to harbor life - Jupiter's icy moon Europa." <img src="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/9611/europafullface_gal_big.jpg" width="800"> http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap961120.html Europa Full Face Credit: Galileo Project, JPL, NASA Explanation: What mysteries might be solved by peering into this crystal ball? This crystal ball is quite unusual because it is actually a moon of Jupiter, the crystals are ice-crystals, and the ball is not only dirty and opaque but cracked beyond repair. Nevertheless, speculation is rampant that oceans exist under these tortured ice-plains that could support life. Europa, the smallest of Jupiter's Galilean moons, was photographed last month in natural color by the robot spacecraft Galileo, now in orbit around Jupiter. The brown patches are what one might think: dirt -- tainting an otherwise white ice-crust. Europa, nearly the same size as Earth's Moon, similarly keeps one face toward its home planet. The hemisphere of Europa shown above is the one that always trails. Why is Europa's surface the smoothest in the Solar System? Where are Europa's craters? <img src="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0204/pwyll_gal_big.jpg" height="1000"> http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020413.html Pwyll: Icy Crater of Europa Credit: PIRL, Galileo Project, NASA Explanation: The impact crater Pwyll (a name from Celtic Mythology) is thought to represent one of the youngest features on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. A combination of color and high resolution black and white data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft was used to produce this view looking down on the crater with the sun illuminating the scene from the right. Pwyll's visible dark central region is about 26 kilometers in diameter, while brilliant white rays of debris blasted from the impact site extend outward for hundreds of kilometers. The white debris or ejecta clearly overlays everything else on the surface - indicating that this impact crater is younger than all surrounding features. The bright white color suggests a composition of water ice particles. Galileo's instruments have uncovered substantial evidence that water in liquid form exists below Europa's icy surface. If Europa has a subsurface ocean, could it harbor life? <img src="http://www.evildrganymede.net/rpg/ths/europa_map.jpg" width="800"> http://www.evildrganymede.net/rpg/ths/ths.htm Europa Seafloor Map by Constantine Thomas - This is a smaller version (1500x1125 pixels) of the original version of the map of Europa's seafloor that I submitted to SJG for Under Pressure. As you can see, it's rather more detailed than the (somewhat butchered) version that SJG's art department came up with. Note that this map doesn't change anything shown in the map in the book - it's just a much clearer version that shows more topographic detail on the seafloor (pretty much all the rifts were blurred out of existence in the book version, for example). http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_529.html Freckled Europa Jupiter’s moon, Europa Reddish spots and shallow pits pepper the ridged surface of Jupiter’s moon, Europa, in this view combining information from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft during two different orbits around Jupiter. The dark spots are called "lenticulae," the Latin term for freckles. Their similar sizes and spacing suggest that Europa's icy shell may be churning away like a lava lamp, with warmer ice moving upward from the bottom of the ice shell while colder ice near the surface sinks downward. Other evidence has shown that Europa likely has a deep melted ocean under its icy shell. Ruddy ice erupting onto the surface to form the lenticulae may hold clues to the composition of the ocean and to whether it could support life. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/University of Colorado "Europa View Of Jupiter" Space Art http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2003-12-31/dshore.jpg <img src="http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2003-12-31/dshore.jpg" width="800">

link The icy moon Europa rises above Jupiter's cloud tops in this photo taken by New Horizons with its Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on February 28, 2007, six hours after the spacecraft's closest approach to Jupiter. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070507.html Europa Rising Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins U. APL, SWRI Explanation: When passing Jupiter on your way to Pluto, what should you look for? NASA pondered just this question recently, and the response from one space enthusiast was to capture the above breathtaking moonrise. The unusual vista was then actually captured by the New Horizons spacecraft in February just after it buzzed past Jupiter on its way to Pluto and the outer Solar System. Visible above is the cracked surface of Europa's expansive ice fields, visible just behind a jumble of Jupiter's swirling clouds. Europa is one of the largest moons of Jupiter and a possible host to sub-surface liquid oceans that are real candidates for containing extra-terrestrial life. During the Jupiter flyby, New Horizons also carried out scientific observations of Jupiter's cloud tops and comparative images of Io's volcanoes and its continually changing surface. <img src="http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0712/europa_galileo.jpg" width="800"> http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071202.html Gibbous Europa Credit: Galileo Project, JPL, NASA; reprocessed by Ted Stryk Explanation: Although the phase of this moon might appear familiar, the moon itself might not. In fact, this gibbous phase shows part of Jupiter's moon Europa. The robot spacecraft Galileo captured this image mosaic during its mission orbiting Jupiter from 1995 - 2003. Visible are plains of bright ice, cracks that run to the horizon, and dark patches that likely contain both ice and dirt. Raised terrain is particularly apparent near the terminator, where it casts shadows. Europa is nearly the same size as Earth's Moon, but much smoother, showing few highlands or large impact craters. Evidence and images from the Galileo spacecraft, indicated that liquid oceans might exist below the icy surface. To -*test*-('") speculation that these seas hold life, ESA has started preliminary development of the Jovian Europa Orbiter, a spacecraft proposed to orbit Europa. If the surface ice is thin enough, a future mission might drop hydrobots to burrow into the oceans and search for life. Multimedia Advisory December 14 , 2007 Looking for Hot Views and a Cool Destination for Life? Where's a great place to look for life in our solar system beyond Earth? Jupiter's moon Europa with its warm, salty ocean, might be a good place to start. Check out a new JPL video at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/europa/europa20071213/ And where would you look for "hot" views of the Red Planet? December's What's Up -- all about Mars -- is now playing at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/whatsup/whatsup20071213/ Be sure to subscribe to JPL's video and audio features, plus sign up for our High Definition (HD) video feed. Details are at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/tools/podcast.cfm . - end - NASA JPL - Cool Destination for Life- Europa & Other Candidates http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/europa/europa20071213/euro20071213-640.m4v http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/europa/europa20071213/euro20071213-480cc.mov

Europa rules. We shall colonize. It definitely must have life! :megaman:

YESS

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/europa.htm The Interior of Europa This cutaway view shows the possible internal structure of Europa. It was created by using a mosaic of images obtained in 1979 by NASA's Voyager spacecraft. The interior characteristics are inferred from gravity field and magnetic field measurements by the Galileo spacecraft. Europa's radius is 1565 km, not too much smaller than our Moon's radius. Europa has a metallic (iron, nickel) core (shown in gray) drawn to the correct relative size. The core is surrounded by a rock shell (shown in brown). The rock layer of Europa (drawn to correct relative scale) is in turn surrounded by a shell of water in ice or liquid form (shown in blue and white and drawn to the correct relative scale). The surface layer of Europa is shown as white to indicate that it may differ from the underlying layers. Galileo images of Europa suggest that a liquid water ocean might now underlie a surface ice layer several to ten kilometers thick. However, this evidence is also consistent with the existence of a liquid water ocean in the past. It is not certain if there is a liquid water ocean on Europa at present. (Copyright 1999 by Calvin J. Hamilton)

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/02/22_europa.shtml The reddish ovals in the center of this image may be areas where water from Europa's underground ocean upwelled and froze on the surface. (Courtesy of Galileo Project, NASA)