Solar System: Europa's Life On Europa

Jupiter Research Jupiter is the fifth and largest planet in our solar system. This gas giant has a thick atmosphere, 17 moons, and a dark, barely-visible ring. Its most prominent features are bands across its latitudes and a great red spot, (which is a storm). Jupiter is composed mostly of gas.

Until space industry can devise a transportation system faster than light-speed, humanity has no hope of ever exploring this planet. On more auspicious terms for discovering a habitable world, one does not need to look farther than our own solar system. Cassini, an orbiter of Saturn, discovered that one of its moons, dubbed as Enceladus, has liquid water beneath its icy crust. Furthermore, a rocky core at the bottom of the ocean confirms that the liquid water may have the essential minerals and nutrients to provide microbial organisms with a sustainable food

In Orson Scott card’s book, Ender's’ game, The novel takes place in a futuristic world where aliens attempted to take over the earth and a young boy named Ender is chosen to lead earth's army to victory. So far mars has been the most significant candidate for extraterrestrial life in our solar system. For a planet to have a suitable environment for life it must have liquid water, oxygen, carbon, atmosphere, heat/warmth, nutrients/food. One of the four moons that orbited Jupiter named Europa was recently expected to have the essentials for life. The moon Europa has strong tidal heat which could keep water in liquid form beneath its layer of ice. Although life on Europa is a small chance there's is one more option which is the largest moon that

For a long time, it seemed the distant dwarf planet on the edges of our solar system could never contain life. The latest discovery by NASA however, just may change that assumption. Scientists have uncovered a large, underground ocean far beneath the frozen surface of Pluto.

Terrestrial planets are planets composed mostly of silicate rocks, or metals. They are the inner planets closest to the Sun. The Terrestrial planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. The Jovian planets are planets that orbit far from the Sun, and they have no solid surface. Unlike Terrestrial planets, Jovian planets are composed of gases, like hydrogen and helium. They are also much larger than Terrestrial planets. The Jovian planets are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Lastly Dwarf planets are celestial bodies that are like planets. They are not classified as a planet because they lack the criteria to be a planet. Unlike other planets, who have a clear path of orbit around the Sun, Dwarf planets do not have a clear path. They deal with

Europa, is the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter, and the sixth-closest to the planet. With its icy crust and temperatures never rising more than minus 220 C (370 F). life on this moon seems impossible, but this icy rock may surprise you. Astronomers believe that there is an ocean underneath the ice that might be similar to Earth’s.

In the movie, however, Stanley Kubrick wisely avoided confusion by setting the third confrontation between Man and Monolith among the moons of Jupiter. Saturn was dropped from the script entirely, though Douglas Trumbull later used the expertise he had acquired filming the ringed planet in his own production, Silent Running.

Scientists have been baffled by the existence of life on Earth where conditions have been thought to be uninhabitable. The existence of these extremophile species, organisms living in conditions thought to be unable to sustain life, on earth gives a boost to the possibility of outside life. Science also does not have a full grasp on exactly what conditions are necessary to cause life to bloom (McAlpine). Just because life is thought to only be able to thrive in certain conditions on Earth, does not mean extraterrestrial life is bound by the same rules, especially if terrestrial species are known to occasionally break the rules. Discovery of life existing away from planet Earth that does not meet the preceded notions of what life must be like would lead scientists to better understand how life functions and performs under countless situations and conditions. Space itself supports this as “we’ve discovered things such as oceans in places we thought they couldn’t exist” (Drake). Oceans on earth are home to millions of species and are hubs for aforementioned extremophile species, most of which remain unknown to modern science. Since oceans on Earth are teeming with mysterious undiscovered life, there is no telling what awaits at the bottom of deep space oceans. If scientists can understand how species may be able to thrive in previously thought to be unlivable conditions, scientists can use those discoveries to help humanity explore areas that would otherwise be perilous. Or perhaps, scientists could potentially use understandings of extraterrestrial life to help humanity form a second home among the

Saturn's moon Titan continues to baffle NASA scientists. Recently, a team found the formation of an ice cloud appearing out of thin air on Titan. This is similar to what we see over Earth's poles. However, there's minimal explanation to this event. While the agency scrambles around for answers, others look for signs of alien life on Titan.

Subterranean Ocean. It is estimated that Europa has an outer layer of water around 100 km or 62 mi thick with a frozen crust around it. Heat from its tidal flexing allows its water to remain liquid. Its surface temp averages at -260f while the

As a child in school I learnt that there were nine planets and nothing about any other planets or solar systems. Now, as an adult we are told there are only eight planets in our solar systems, but there are more planets out there in different solar system, the universal is much bigger than we could ever possibly thought it was. These planets are refers to as exoplanets and thousands of planets have been discovered over the last couple decades. Many people have question is their life out there beside us on Earth and if so how can it be if the Earth is the only planet in our solar system have life? How are we able to find these other planets? What are these exoplanet like? These are just some of the questions astronomers have

Navigation has always played a key role in all aspects of human life. Although modern technology has simplified travel and airplanes are used constantly, ships continue to be an important part of trade and military systems today. This was especially the case around the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Colonialism was built on navigation and whoever held the greatest naval power could gain the greatest control. However, because of the difficulties that came from calculating location while at sea, navigation became the greatest scientific challenge in the age of sailing.

Future manned expeditions could melt the ice into water, for drinking, washing and turning into rocket-fuel: there is enough ice to make a lake 10km across and 10m deep.

Right alongside the fifth and largest planet in our solar system, Jupiter, orbits a moon only about the same size as Earth’s moon. On this moon, is an icy surface that scientists are trying to uncover. Due to the presence of what they believe to be water, there is the possibility of life on this moon named Europa.

Europa is the sixth of Jupiter's moons and the fourth largest. Europa is named after a Phoenician princess who was abducted by Zeus and taken to the island of Crete to be his lover. Europa was discovered by Galileo Galilei and possibly Simon Marius in 1610 and is one of the four Galilean satellites. The others being: Io, Ganymede, and Callisto. Europa is very different from the other moons of Jupiter. Instead of a rocky, cratered surface like Callisto and Ganymede, it instead has a smooth outer surface of cracked ice. There are very few sign of craters on Europa. In fact, only three large craters have been found. This indicates that Europa's surface is very young and active. In photographs sent back by orbiters, the surface resembles sea ice on Earth. Astronomers believe that beneath this layer of ice may exist an ocean, kept liquid by the moon's internal heat. This liquid ocean could be as much as 30 miles deep. The existence of deep ocean vents on the ocean floor on Earth have led some scientists to speculate that there could be a possibility of life on Europa. Around these deep sea vents on Earth are life forms that do not need sunlight to survive. They instead feed on bacteria that get their nutrients from chemicals seeping up from the ocean floor. This process is known as chemosynthesis. Scientists believe that similar life forms could evolve on Europa if a liquid ocean does indeed exist beneath its frozen surface.