Europa has 2-3 times as much water as Earth!
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Titan and Europa Essay Contest
NASA is holding an essay contest about Saturn’s moon Titan & Jupiter’s moon Europa for students in the United States in grades 5-12. Thecontest deadline is February 28, 2013. The contest website is:http://icyworlds.jpl.nasa.gov/contest/.
The topic of the Titan & Europa essay is either a mission to Saturn’s moon Titan or to Jupiter’s moon Europa. Both of these missions would study a world that is exciting for astrobiologists. Your assignment is to decide which of the proposed missions would be more interesting to you, and why. Be creative, be original, and ask good questions that you hope the mission would answer.
The Titan mission would include a Titan orbiter and a Titan balloon. The Europa mission would include a Europa orbiter and a Europa lander. The orbiters, balloon, and lander would each have science instruments to study either Titan or Europa. In your essay, you can include information about what science instruments you would put on the orbiter and balloon or lander, if you wish, based on what you hope to find on Titan or Europa.
Winning essays will be posted on a NASA website, and winners and their classes will be invited to participate in a videoconference or teleconference with NASA scientists.
Contest videos about Astrobiology, Titan, and Europa can be found at:
http://icyworlds.jpl.nasa.gov/contest/videos/
Questions about the Titan & Europa essay contest can be sent to:
titaneuropa@jpl.nasa.gov
Arctic bacteria help in the search to find life on moon Europa
“In a fjord in Canada scientists have found a landscape similar to one of Jupiter’s icy moons: Europa. It consists of a frozen and sulphurous environment, where sulphur associated with Arctic bacteria offer clues for the upcoming missions in the search for traces of life on Europa…”
There’s more water on Jupiter’s moon Europa than there is on Earth
Based on data acquired by NASA’s Galileo satellite, astronomers think the global oceans sloshing around beneath Europa’s icy exterior are likely 2—3 more voluminous than the oceans here on Earth. Not 2—3 times more proportionally, 2—3 times more in total volume.
Illustration by Kevin Hand (JPL/Caltech), Jack Cook (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Howard Perlman (USGS); Spotted on NASA APOD
Weekend Feature: Robotic Search for Life on Jupiter’s ‘Ocean Moon’ Europa
At NASA’s Astrobiology Science Conference held in Atlanta last week, visionary space inventor Bill Stone announced that he intends to get an autonomous six-foot by ten inch robotic cylinder called Valkyrie ready to visit the icebound sea of Jupiter’s moon Europa, cut through the icy crust, explore the waters below, and collect samples in the search of life. in 2011, Stone announced that NASA awarded his venture, Stone Aerospace, a four-year, $4M funding to continue development of the Valkyrie project, to design and field-test an autonomous ice penetrating cryobot.
Continue reading “Weekend Feature: Robotic Search for Life on Jupiter’s ‘Ocean Moon’ Europa” »
I guess I missed this talk last week. That’s the problem with having concurrent sessions…
Robot Submarine on Jupiter Moon Europa is ‘Holy Grail’ Mission for Planetary Science
Sending a submarine to the bottom of the ocean on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa is the most exciting potential mission in planetary science, according to one prominent researcher.
Europa’s seafloor may well be capable of supporting life as we know it today, said Cornell University’s Steve Squyres, lead scientist for NASA’s Opportunity Mars rover, which is currently roaming the Red Planet. So a Europa robotic submarine mission is at the top of his wish list, though it likely won’t happen anytime soon.
“This is fantastic stuff,” Squyres said Wednesday (March 21) at a conference called Nuclear and Emerging Technologies for Space in The Woodlands, Texas. “This is the holy grail of planetary exploration right here.”
Also be sure to check out DepthX…
Jupiter Moon’s Ocean May Be Too Acidic for Life
The ocean underneath the icy shell of Jupiter’s moon Europa might be too acidic to support life, due to compounds that may regularly migrate downward from its surface, researchers say.
Scientists believe that Europa, which is roughly the size of Earth’s moon, possesses an ocean perhaps 100 miles deep (160 kilometers). This ocean is overlain by an icy crust of unknown thickness, although some estimates are that it could be only a few miles thick.
