Sentences with phrase «icy moon europa»

Some inveterate searchers after life have decided the icy moon Europa is the next place to look.
These composite images show a suspected plume of material erupting two years apart from the same location on Jupiter's icy moon Europa.
Underrated compared with Jupiter's icy moon Europa, Enceladus is one of the most fascinating objects in the Solar System.
Jupiter's icy moon Europa is a major target of astrobiology research in light of the possibility that it offers a habitable environment in the Solar System.
Jupiter's icy moon Europa squirts water like a squishy bath toy when it's squeezed by the gas giant's gravity, scientists say.
An artist's impression shows Jupiter's icy moon Europa shooting plumes of water vapor from around its south pole.
For fourteen more orbits, the spacecraft focused on ice, water, and fire: the icy moon Europa, which might have an ocean; Jupiter's majestic thunderstorms; and the fiery volcanoes of Io.
JUPITER»S icy moon Europa may be one of the most promising places to look for alien microbes, thanks to its subsurface ocean.
WITH Jupiter stirring the pot, the planet's icy moon Europa may be brewing a more nutritious soup for life than anyone had expected.
Hunter Waite has waited years for the chance to use his planetary science engineering chops on a mission to Jupiter's icy moon Europa.
The potential cost of NASA's flagship mission to Jupiter's icy moon Europa was recently put at $ 4.7 billion.
«We also see fractures on other solar system bodies, such as Jupiter's icy moon Europa,» Quick said.
I arrive during the last week of field tests for the robotic explorer VALKYRIE, which could one day dive into the ocean thought to hide beneath the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa, looking for signs of life.
An ocean within Jupiter's icy moon Europa may be intermittently venting plumes of water vapor into outer space, according to a new study in the Astrophysical Journal.
A rebellious young scientist makes the case that Jupiter's icy moon Europa could host thriving life.
More than half a kilometre beneath the Devon Ice Cap, scientists discovered two lakes whose extreme saltiness could make them a habitat for microbes — an environment that might also exist on Jupiter's icy moon Europa.
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIFORNIA — Planetary scientists who dream of probing for microbes on Jupiter's icy moon Europa are already studying similar settings on Earth.
He had then cooled the mix to the temperature of Jupiter's icy moon Europa — too cold, most scientists had assumed, for much of anything to happen.
One reader asked if Jupiter's icy moon Europa should be a target.
A major international expedition to Jupiter's moons is in the planning stages, but the space agencies intend to focus on the icy moons Europa and Ganymede.

Not exact matches

On May 26, NASA announced a suite of instruments that will accompany the spacecraft they're designing to send to Europa — a moon four times smaller than Earth that scientists suspect could harbor a deep, vast, salty ocean beneath its thick, icy surface.
The goal is to keep Juno from disrupting any aliens — microbial or otherwise — that might live in hidden oceans of water below the icy shells of Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede.
The watery depths of Jupiter's moon Europa might interact with its icy crust (as illustrated above), making the existence (and detection) of life there more likely.
The spot where Europa's plumes appear to originate (left, with the green oval showing the 2014 occurrence and the blue oval showing the 2016 occurrence) is also the warmest spot on the icy moon's surface, shown in a heat map from the Galileo spacecraft (right, with lighter yellow contours showing relatively warmer regions).
The presence of sea salt on Europa's surface suggests the ocean is interacting with its rocky seafloor — an important consideration in determining whether the icy moon could support life.
Jupiter's enigmatic moon Europa has long been thought to contain a huge ocean beneath its icy crust, but what is in that ocean and does it ever come to the surface?
Scientists don't want to risk a run - in between Juno and any of the icy moons, such as Europa, which could conceivably harbor life in its buried liquid water ocean.
The European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) and NASA's Europa Clipper both hope to launch around 2022.
Because such chemistry provides energy for microbial life on Earth, the discovery makes Enceladus the top candidate for hosting life elsewhere in the solar system — besting even Jupiter's Europa, another icy moon with an ocean.
But another of Jupiter's satellites, icy Europa, is a contender, as are Enceladus and the largest of Saturn's moons, Titan.
Certain tidally stressed moons in the outer solar system, such as Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, harbor oceans of liquid water beneath their icy crusts.
Its next phase will be the Europa Clipper mission, a Jupiter orbiter launching in the 2020s to study the watery depths beneath the Jovian moon's icy crust.
It has recorded towering volcanic plumes above Jupiter's moon Io, gathered evidence that Europa might have an ocean beneath its icy carapace, and investigated the intense radiation environment near Jupiter.
Ice - encrusted Europa is the most likely moon in the entire solar system to have harbored life, perhaps in oceans beneath the icy surface.
After Mars, the icy ocean on the Jovian moon Europa is likely to be the next target.
Schimdt has found evidence that warm ocean currents and convective forces beneath Europa's frozen shell can cause large blocks of ice to overturn and melt, bringing vast pockets of water, sometimes holding as much liquid as all of the Great Lakes combined, to within several kilometers of the moon's icy surface.
The interiors of the icy satellites of giant planets, such as in Jupiter's moon Europa, have conditions where carbonic acid could form.
The very existence of these hardy organisms hints that life might be able to eke out an existence in the cold, dry climate of Mars, the icy, acidic conditions of Jupiter's moon Europa, or in countless other spots beyond our solar system.
[Photos: Europa, Mysterious Icy Moon of Jupiter]
The $ 2 billion Europa mission will orbit Jupiter's icy moon, using its instruments to observe the surface up close and probe for information about the subsurface environment.
Scientists are interested in understanding early life on Earth because if we ever hope to find life on other worlds - especially icy worlds with subsurface oceans such as Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's Enceladus - we need to know what chemical signatures to look for.
Scientists are interested in understanding early life on Earth because if we ever hope to find life on other worlds — especially icy worlds with subsurface oceans such as Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's Enceladus — we need to know what chemical signatures to look for.
Now, Waite is interested in applying mass spectrometry to determine Europa's surface composition, data that could clarify how the moon's icy surface interacts with the liquid oceans below.
In May it approved the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, a probe slated for launch in 2022 that will measure the thickness of Europa's ice shell.
Martian colonies could pack up the spaceship and relocate to Jupiter's moon Europa, where scientists believe a large ocean of liquid water hides beneath an icy crust.
A Brown University study provides new evidence that the icy shell of Jupiter's moon Europa may have plate tectonics similar to those on Earth.
That same year, NASA cut funding for a proposed multibillion - dollar mission called the Jupiter Icy Moons Observer, virtually eliminating all graduate - level jobs for studying Europa.
Elsewhere in the solar system, though, sterilisation rules remain vital — especially for icy moons such as Jupiter's Europa and Saturn's Titan, which are the best hopes for finding an independent origin of life.
Ever since NASA's two Voyager spacecraft snapped the first photos of icy cracks crisscrossing Jupiter's moon Europa in 1979, astronomers have speculated that tectonic forces could be at work.
The prime target of NASA's orbiter is Jupiter's moon Europa, which is thought to have an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell.
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