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    Europa Clipper tagged posts

    NASA’s Juno provides High-Definition views of Europa’s Icy Shell

    May 17, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This annotated image of Europa’s surface from Juno’s SRU shows the location of a double ridge running east-west (blue box) with possible plume stains and the chaos feature the team calls “the Platypus” (orange box). These features hint at current surface activity and the presence of subsurface liquid water on the icy Jovian moon.

    Images from the JunoCam visible-light camera aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft supports the theory that the icy crust at the north and south poles of Jupiter’s moon Europa is not where it used to be. Another high-resolution picture of the icy moon, by the spacecraft’s Stellar Reference Unit (SRU), reveals signs of possible plume activity and an area of ice shell disruption where brine may have recently bubbled to the surface.

    The JunoCam results recentl...

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    Signs of Life would be Detectable in Single Ice Grain Emitted from Extraterrestrial Moons

    March 26, 2024, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    cartoon of icy moon with ocean interior covered with thin yellow stripe
    The drawing on the left depicts Enceladus and its ice-covered ocean, with cracks near the south pole that are believed to penetrate through the icy crust. The middle panel shows where authors believe life could thrive: at the top of the water, in a proposed thin layer (shown yellow) like on Earth’s oceans. The right panel shows that as gas bubbles rise and pop, bacterial cells could get lofted into space with droplets that then become the ice grains that were detected by Cassini.European Space Agency

    Could life be found in frozen sea spray from moons orbiting Saturn or Jupiter? New research finds that life can be detected in a single ice grain containing one bacterial cell or portions of a cell...

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    NASA Study suggests Shallow Lakes in Icy Crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa could erupt

    October 13, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This illustration depicts a plume of water vapor that could potentially be emitted from the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. New research sheds light on what plumes, if they do exist, could reveal about lakes that may be inside the moon’s crust.
     Credit: NASA/ESA/K. Retherford/SWR

    In the search for life beyond Earth, subsurface bodies of water in our outer solar system are some of the most important targets. That’s why NASA is sending the Europa Clipper spacecraft to Jupiter’s moon Europa: There is strong evidence that under a thick crust of ice, the moon harbors a global ocean that could potentially be habitable.

    But scientists believe the ocean isn’t the only water on Europa...

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    Exploring Jupiter’s Moon, Europa, possible with Silicon-Germanium Transistor Technology

    October 4, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Europa is more than just one of Jupiter’s many moons — it’s also one of most promising places in the solar system to look for extraterrestrial life. Under 10 kilometers of ice is a liquid water ocean that could sustain life. But with surface temperatures at -180 Celsius and with extreme levels of radiation, it’s also one of the most inhospitable places in the solar system. Exploring Europa could be possible in the coming years thanks to new applications for silicon-germanium transistor technology research at Georgia Tech.

    Regents’ Professor John D...

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