Looking for signs life outside the earthScientists don’t just focus on other planets. You can also find it in Moon, For example. On our planet or on any other planet. This is the case Europebecause recently the team scientists from Stanford University and NASA found evidence surface water on this satellite Jupiter.
It was already known that it contained water. However, one ice crust made it difficult to explore it further. This was an obstacle, or so they believed, because it was this ice layer that allowed these scientists to suspect that there might be water bags much more superficial. And the fact that they are superficial is not a trifle, because proximity to the surface could allow him to capture nutrients from neighboring celestial bodiess and thereby create an ideal breeding ground for the reproduction of life.
Does this mean that there is life in Europe? On the mainland yes, on jupiter’s moon We do not know. There is simply a hypothesis that there is one of the important pieces that there could be life. But even if this part were real, one cannot be sure that it indicates the present or past presence of living beings. However, this is the most exciting find because it’s a good thread to start with.
Europa, the smallest of Jupiter’s Galilean moons.
In 1610 the physicist Galileo Galilei I was watching Jupiter with a telescope he made himself when something caught his eye. There were three stars in the vicinity of the planet, which, after a few days of observations, turned out to be four and they revolve around it. He named them as medical starsin honor of his former student Cosimo II de’ Medici.
However, after subsequent and more accurate observations by other astronomers, it was decided to change their name. It was concluded that these were the moons of Jupiter. For this reason, this time, in honor of its discoverer, his group was dubbed as Galilean moons. Each of them also received a separate name: Europa, Io, Callisto and Ganymede.
Jupiter’s moons were discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610.
Europe is the smallest of these, and possibly also the youngest, as its low number of craters indicates that its surface has not been hit very much. It is believed that it may contain oxygen, and for a long time it was believed that under its ice cap there could be liquid water. Everything points to the necessary ingredients for life, so this was one of the main goals. Galileo probewith which NASA metaphorically brought the physicist back to his discovery almost 400 years later, in 1995.
The data obtained at that time continue to be studied today, and it was they who helped develop a new hypothesis, just published in Connection with nature.
Intuition and extraterrestrial life
Many of the great scientific discoveries are made by accident. It’s something known as intuition and that is what led to the development of this recent study.
One of the authors of the study, a graduate student at Stanford University. Riley Kalbergdid research that had nothing to do with Jupiter, let alone Europa.
The discovery came about by accident when a scientist studying the ice in Greenland saw the results of another research group in Europe.
Specializing in electronic engineering, he was involved in computational analysis ice structures in Greenland. This is important because the growth and retreat of ice sheets can help understand sea level rise and thus create predictive models for various climate change scenarios.
He had data from radars used between 2015 and 2017 in Operation NASA IceBridge. They revealed a curious double-ridge structure, which, according to the available data, must have been formed due to the fact that the ice broke around a pocket of compressed liquid water, which refrozen.
Kahlberg shuffled all this data as he walked to his university on presentation research team that studied the surface of Europa based on data from the Galileo probe. This is a fairly common phenomenon in science. Researchers present their results periodically so that their colleagues can be informed.
Although this was not his specialty, the graduate student went into it and something strongly caught his attention: Jupiter’s moon had the structure double comb very similar to the one he studied in Greenland. This meant that before him were data from the terrestrial analogue of Europa, which could help determine whether there could really be life on this moon of Jupiter. He decided to discuss it with these scientists, and they all started a collaboration that led to a very interesting new hypothesis.
Hidden keys in the ice of Europe
Starting from the foundation of Greenland, it was possible to make models of what could happen in Europe. Thus, these scientists came to the conclusion that the ridges must have been formed due to the fact that water from shallow ocean rose through the ice along various cracks, giving rise to the very characteristic peaks.
Therefore, the hypothesis that there really could be surface water on Europa gained strength again. Until now, these were speculations, but this time they had real data. The data was taken on Earth, in a place remarkably similar to Jupiter’s moon.
In the future, these scientists hope to get an ice-climbing radar.
In the future, these scientists hope to have ice-penetrating radar to see beyond Europa’s icy crust. The only way they could check if there really is surface water on the Galilean moon. If so, then we would be faced with an interesting place to look for signs of life, present or past. It should be remembered that these will not be little green men, but the smallest single-celled life form, which will be a cause for celebration. However, let’s not throw a bell on the fly, because these signs can mean a lot more. Step by step, we have enough to deal with some life forms here on Earth.
Source: Hiper Textual
