Europa's Acid Ice Fields 311
tr0llb4rt0 writes "The New Scientist reports on recent observations that suggest the ice on Jupiter's moon Europa may be highly acid with a pH of near zero, and have a surface layer of hydrogen peroxide.
Two theories have been put forward. One says that the acid has been formed at the surface layer from oceanic salts reacting with the intense radiation from Jupiter, the other that sulphuric acid is coming directly from the ocean, with the water reacting with sulphur produced from undersea volcanos.
Wilst reducing the chances of life on Europa, it is not ruling it out completely, as there are terrestrial extremophile bacteria which thrive in highly acid environments."
A nice place to visit (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A nice place to visit (Score:5, Funny)
With apologies to Monty Python... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:With apologies to Monty Python... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:With apologies to Monty Python... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:With apologies to Monty Python... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:With apologies to Monty Python... (Score:4, Funny)
What? The curtains?
Re:With apologies to Monty Python... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A nice place to visit (Score:5, Funny)
I'm afraid you can't even visit.
Please follow the directions inscribed on the handy black monolith:
"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS--EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE."
Re:A nice place to visit (Score:3, Funny)
The forgotten addendum (Score:5, Funny)
"SERIOUSLY. THE WHOLE PLACE IS COVERED IN ACID. WE LOST FIVE CRAFT BEFORE WE FOUND OUT."
"WE'RE JUST SAYING."
(ps - pretend this text isn't here. It's just lowercase stuff meant to get around the lameness filter so's I can tell this (admittedly lame) joke. Damn you,
Acid...not just... (Score:5, Funny)
Wilst reducing the chances of life on Europa,... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wilst reducing the chances of life on Europa,.. (Score:3, Funny)
Shooting into space (Score:2, Interesting)
Finally! 2001 Explained. (Score:5, Funny)
With all that hydrogen peroxide (Score:5, Funny)
Rocket Fuel? (Score:5, Insightful)
*hm....*
And a monopropellant to boot (Score:5, Informative)
This assumes that the concentration is high enough to be recovered and purified using the available local energy. That may not be the case.
Re:And a monopropellant to boot (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, since 2 H2O2 can become 2H2O + O2, you can get oxygen and water, both useful. Finally, with the expenditure of energy (freely available if you burn H2O2 as a lone energy source), you can use electrolysis to get H2 and more O2 from the water.
Sounds to me like a sweet deal.
Re:And a monopropellant to boot (Score:5, Funny)
Then probably some jock kid who made fun of her at the begining claps and then everybody starts clapping and they all learn the true meaning of Christmas or something. I don't really know, I scratched the end of the DVD up pretty badly with a steak knife trying to voodoo-stab L. Ron in Hell.
Re:With all that hydrogen peroxide (Score:2, Funny)
I'd at least want a normal-sized extremophile blonde Europan
heh heh
pH balance (Score:5, Funny)
hydrogen peroxide (Score:2, Funny)
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Mental Note... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mental Note... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Mental Note... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Mental Note... (Score:4, Informative)
2. It actualy rains sulfuric acid on Venus and the surface temperature is 350C there (and 90 atm pressure). Russians managed in sixties, although their probes did not last much over 1 hour before malfunction.
Re:Mental Note... (Score:5, Interesting)
Or you could still use metal, but take an ablative approach...Essentially standing on thick stilts. Make sure they stand vertical (as opposed to at an angle) else they'll only provide a short-term delay rather than a long-term one.
Sulfuric acid = Aluminum Spacecraft (Score:3, Interesting)
Life could be tough on acid Europa (Score:4, Interesting)
I understand they are just saying "tough", but if life likely arose from similar (harsh) conditions, I don't think it would be that unlikely.
Alternative life forms (Score:5, Insightful)
Key word being terrestrial. What about life forms based on silicon and sulphur (as opposed to carbon and oxygen). The theories are there, and I think we have merely begun to scratch the surface of what different kinds of 'life' may be out there.
Re:Alternative life forms (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Alternative life forms (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure that we might even be able to recognize it as life despite observing it. We are living in a universal time period where there have been enough supernovae explosions to create an abundant supply of carbon and oxygen, plenty more will be required before there will be enough to chemically kickstart silicon based life.
There's no way of knowing if that kind of life will work on an evolutionary platform, maybe it will maybe it won't, for us it's DNA, what will it be for them?
Re:Alternative life forms (Score:4, Interesting)
1. The large amount of oxygen on Earth is a result of the the presence of life, not a prerequisite for it.
2. Even if a particular element has a low universal abundance, there can still be a local concentration of it high enough to "kickstart life" (as might be the case with silicon and sulpher on Europa).
Re:Alternative life forms (Score:4, Informative)
The oxygen was here long before life, it was just locked up in other chemical compounds besides O2.
Re:Alternative life forms (Score:3, Informative)
Every rock on earth is based on silicon, for crying out loud, there is absolutely no shortage of it.
Re:Alternative life forms (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Alternative life forms (Score:4, Funny)
Some might disagree with me, but I'd be putting my money on some variant of struct {}.
Re:Alternative life forms (Score:2)
Re:Alternative life forms (Score:3, Interesting)
Wake me up when we have an entire field of science dedicated to the study of silicon compounds, and I might be more inclined to believe in the existence of non-carbon-based lifeforms.
Re:Alternative life forms (Score:5, Insightful)
I knew it! (Score:4, Funny)
Tom
New Scientist, you say? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just think twice before going for a swim...
Life on Europa? (Score:4, Funny)
The perfect environment? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oxygen's not even all that good for us (Score:5, Interesting)
By the time you get past the lungs, oxygen is locked into special carrier molecules and shuttled to mitochondria. Most parts of your body aren't exposed to it, and even so there's cumulative cell damage from oxidation that's been theorized to be a cause of aging.
We've adapted to it, even "learned" how to get energy from it, but we did that with wrapper layers.
Oxygen-releasing algae were the ultimate environmental catastrophe.
If only they could find silicone... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If only they could find silicone... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oftentimes, humour is borne out of the introspection into one's own world.
That's insight.
Sounds like a recent Nova (Score:5, Interesting)
H2O2 indicates lots of OXYGEN! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:H2O2 indicates lots of OXYGEN! (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, O3 may be available, but that doesn't mean you can breathe it.
It would seem that life as we know it would be indicated more by the presence of CO2, oxygen in of itself.
Re:H2O2 indicates lots of OXYGEN! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:H2O2 indicates lots of OXYGEN! (Score:5, Informative)
So it really depends on how you define "usable", that is, what you really want to do with that oxygen peroxide
Re:H2O2 indicates lots of OXYGEN! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:H2O2 indicates lots of OXYGEN! (Score:2)
No Biggie (Score:5, Funny)
so (Score:5, Funny)
Why (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Why (Score:2, Interesting)
You my friend, have little knowledge of chemistry. But that's not the real point I'm trying to make here. Fact is that everything in this entire solar system has had some contact with everything else.
The origin of life on Earth came at the end of the late heavy bombardment, a time when there was a near constant series of assults on all the worlds which blasted great chunks of each into the surrounding maelstrom. Rocks from
Re:Why (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why (Score:3, Insightful)
So life could exist anywhere in any imaginable form. One day we might be able to create "living" machines by our definition of life. Life is simply organized matter. And we haven't even explored all forms of matter in our little corner of our solar system let alone this universe.
Let me put it this way. We created the laws of physics, Neutonian physics anyway, to d
Re:Why (Score:3, Interesting)
No.
This scientific theory you mentioned, tell me, does it have anything to do with this definition of life I keep hearing about?
No. He was responding to your statement about the "essense" [sic] of the struggle against entropy. To wit, your statement is not a scientific theory. He was not advancing any particular theory of his own.
You stated, "So life could exist anywhere in any imaginable form," and that sort of unqualified blanket statement is probably true simply due to the unboun
Volcanoes on Io responsible (Score:5, Informative)
Sulfuric acid found on Europa was reported as far back as 1999 when this article [nasa.gov]was published on Science@NASA based on this NASA Press release [nasa.gov]. According to the article, sulfur from volcanoes on Io, another one of Jupiter's satellites, may be responsible for the environment on Europa.
ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE (Score:5, Funny)
But do you think sending a metric shitload of baking soda and red food dye counts as attempting a landing? Because I, for one, would LOVE to use Europa as a gigantic science-fair volcano.
Let's go there instead of Mars (Score:2)
Can't have two theories (Score:3, Informative)
You cannot have two contradictory possible explanations and have them both be theories. What you have are two hypotheses.
The hypothesis that fits with the evidence might become a theory.
Re:Can't have two theories (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Can't have two theories (Score:5, Funny)
KFG
Organisms escaping earth and settling on Europa? (Score:4, Interesting)
What if some bacteria escaped earth's atmosphere -- maybe a meteor kicked it up, or it was randomly carried by wind up and out of the reach of earth -- and settled on Europa, Mars, Venus, or some other planets?
Surviving in high concentrations of acid (Score:5, Funny)
Such as UC Berkeley.
and Titan looks like Sweden! (Score:3, Interesting)
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2533735
Saturn Moon 'Could Look Like Sweden'
By John von Radowitz, Science Correspondent, PA News, in Seattle
A probe due to land on Saturn's moon, Titan, could discover a world that looks "a little bit like Sweden or Northern Canada", one of the mission's scientists said.
The Cassini spacecraft is due to reach Saturn in July after an epic journey lasting seven years.
On January 14 next year, the American orbiter will send a European lander parachuting down to the surface of Saturn's largest moon, Titan - one of the most mysterious bodies in the Solar System.
No-one knows for certain what the probe, called Huygens, will find as it drops through Titan's smoggy methane and nitrogen atmosphere which is four times thicker than the Earth's.
But scientists have found new clues using the Earth's biggest radio telescope as a giant radar to bounce signals off the moon's surface.
Images from the 300-metre wide Arecibo dish in Puerto Rico indicate the presence of seas and lakes - but not of water. These would be seas of ethane and methane liquified by Titan's frigid surface temperature of minus 179 degrees Celsius.
If Huygens lands in such a lake of liquid lighter fuel it will float on the surface, taking photos and collecting data. Scientists hope the probe would also survive an impact on soft ground or snow, but landing on a hard or rocky surface would destroy it.
Dr Ralph Lorenz, a mission scientist based at the University of Arizona in Tucson, USA, yesterday described what he expected Huygens to encounter.
Despite Titan being such an alien world, its physical appearance was likely to be similar to parts of the Earth, he said.
He told the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual meeting in Seattle: "I think what we'll see is a rugged, but muted landscape.
You don't have the sort of freeze and thaw shattering process that gives you lots of sharp mountains.
"I think we'll see a lot of impact craters. Impact cratering occurs everywhere in the Solar System and on Titan, being a fairly sluggish environment, erosion is fairly slow.
"A lot of these will be filled with liquid to form circular lakes, rim-shaped lakes, bullseye lakes; horseshoe lakes. So I think we'll see something maybe a bit like Sweden or Northern Canada."
He said the probe would hit the surface at five metres per second. "If we landed on a solid lump of ice or a rock then its got to be all over," said Dr Lorenz. "If we landed on snow or something like sand then we should survive and continue to transmit data."
Nearly half the size of Earth, Titan is the only moon in the Solar System with a thick atmosphere. Scientists believe there may be a deep layer of water ice beneath the hydrocarbon surface.
An intriguing possibility is that asteroids or comets hitting the surface might have melted the water ice and cause it to mix with the methane and ethane. This could theoretically give rise to organic chemicals - including amino acids, the precursors of life.
Dr Lorenz said 20 gaseous organic chemicals had been detected on Titan, and many more may exist in solid form on the surface.
However he thought although the first steps towards biology may be seen on Titan the world was too cold for the development of life itself.
"If you were to introduce microbes down there they might survive, but the question of how life evolves is a different story," he said.
Dumb conclusion (Score:4, Interesting)
The chemical composition of the Europan surface as revealed by earth-based spectrascopy may bear little resemblance to the bulk chemical makeup of the surface ice or ocean beneath. Photochemistry due to Jupiter's radiation environment only operates very close to the surface. How anyone can come to the conclusion that the result is "bad for Europan life" when such life may lie many kilometers beneath the surface is beyond me.
No wonder (Score:4, Funny)
Now we know why we shouldn't set up a base there.
Only brunettes and redhead need apply (Score:3, Funny)
And yet, oddly, there are no blondes.
Re:Only brunettes and redhead need apply (Score:4, Funny)
Instant Atmosphere! (Score:4, Funny)
As soon as the H2O2 hits the infected areas, instant oxygen and water!
A few hundred battle-scarred individuals and we'll have an inhabitable atmoshpere.
Life forms that thrive on acid (Score:3, Funny)
This could be home for Aliens. :-) (Score:4, Funny)
Alien life on Europa (Score:3, Funny)
I'm a bit suspicious about this... (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting aside: Professor Peale narrowly made the window before Voyager took the now-famous pictures. He had done some work earlier on Earth's moon, then applied the same calculation to every moon in the solar system. But for historical reasons, orbital data about the Galilean moons are recorded differently from those of every other moon in the book where Professor Peale looked up the numbers to check each moon. He only noticed this months later, and when the calculation showed the possibility of a volcanic Io, he had to rush to try to get his prediction published-- ANYONE can write a paper explaining why a given moon is volcanic, but Professor Peale had actually predicted that Io was volcanic before anyone knew if it really was.
Anyway, the idea that Europa has a rocky center (with a molten interior) doesn't seem very likely to me. I've sent an e-mail to Professor Peale asking what he thinks, but I just did that, and he has not replied yet.
--Mark
Not Bacteria, Archaea (Score:5, Interesting)
Little Johnny (Score:3, Funny)
He isn't anymore,
For what he thought was H20
Was H2SO4.
Dictionaries rule (www.m-w.com) (Score:5, Informative)
Main Entry: 1acid
Pronunciation: 'a-s&d
Function: adjective
Etymology: French or Latin; French acide, from Latin acidus, from acEre to be sour -- more at ACET-
2 a : of, relating to, or being an acid; also : having the reactions or characteristics of an acid (acid soil) (an acid solution) b of salts and esters : derived by partial exchange of replaceable hydrogen (acid sodium carbonate NaHCO3) c : containing or involving the use of an acid (as in manufacture) d : marked by or resulting from an abnormally high concentration of acid (acid indigestion)
Re:Acid ? pH zero ? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Acid ? pH zero ? (Score:5, Informative)
Limit, yes (Score:3, Informative)
pH meaning (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Acid ? pH zero ? (Score:5, Informative)
The pH scale runs from 0 to 14, with a pH of 7 being neutral. The number is actually an inverse exponent and has to do with the concentration of hydrogen ions (H+) in solution. (You could also use pOH, relating to the concentration of hydronium ions (OH-), the relationship is pOH = 14 - pH).
Re:Acid ? pH zero ? (Score:2, Informative)
Confused the hell out of me in Bio class when the chart in the textbook was different from the charts the teacher was using on the OH lecture. Then again, it's been a few years, so I may be wrong.
Re:You know, I'd never throught of that (Score:3, Informative)
The scale goes:
Ph0 - Most acidic Ph7 - Neutral Ph14 - Most Basic
Ph0 Ph7 Ph14
Acid Neutral Basic
Re:What is this basic of which you speak???? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you're confused:
pH = -log10([H3O+]).
pH can be = 0 if [H3O] = 1. Of course, getting to pH 0 is mighty hard, but getting near it is very possible.
Re:pH of near zero? (Score:5, Informative)
How so? pH = -log10([H+]) -- negative base ten log of hydrogen ion concentration. A pH of 0 would imply:
pH = 0 = -log10([H+]) ==> [H+] = 1 mol/liter.
H+ solutions which are more concentrated than 1 mol/liter will have pH values below zero.
A "logarithmic scale" means that linear changes in the scale indicate exponential changes in some underlying quantity. For every change of 1 in pH number, the concentration of the solution changes by a factor of ten. Just because the graph of log(x) goes to minus infinity as x goes to zero doesn't mean a logarithmic scale has some kind of asymptote.
Learn before you post.
Re:pH of near zero? (Score:2, Offtopic)
What is the pH of hogwash? Are hogs acidic or basic?
Anybody know?
Re:so, so confoused... (Score:2)
Rosanne? Rosanne Rosanna-Danna?
Oh
(Slashdot readers born after 1975, please Google on "Gilda Radner".)
Re:Isn't it rather sad ... (Score:3, Funny)
Sooner or later we'll just be what we've created in the movies: A group of living things going from planet to planet stripping it of its resources.
Tell you what: when we do, you can take Ark B, m'kay?
For those who don't get the HHGttG joke: http://www.sadgeezer.com/hhg/golgaf.htm)
No, it isn't. (Score:3, Interesting)
To really understand something, it helps to know where it came from. Finding a second instance of life in the solar system could help us better understand how life on Earth originated. We have theories about how nucleic acids led to simple replicating 'organisms', but to find one on a world like Europa or Titan would be invaluable in determining whether these theories are right or wrong.
Sooner or later we'll just
Re:If only people wanted to go...? (Score:3, Interesting)
. .
Anyone chemically-enabled out there do the math and figure out how much output you get from it?
Hydrogen peroxide will be decomposed by
Re:Life? (Score:3, Interesting)