Discovery Increases Odds of Life On Europa 164
tetrahedrassface writes "Observations of spectral emissions from the surface of Europa using state of the art ground based telescopes here on Earth have lent data that indicate the surface of the Jovian moon is linked with the vast ocean below. The observations carried out by Caltech's Mike Brown and JPL's Kevin Hand show that water is making it from the ocean below all the way up to the surface of the moon. In their study (PDF) they noticed a dip in the emission bands around lower latitudes of the moon, and quickly honed in on what they were seeing. The mineral of interest is epsomite, a magnesium sulfate compound that can only come from the ocean below. From the article: 'Magnesium should not be on the surface of Europa unless it's coming from the ocean,' Brown says. 'So that means ocean water gets onto the surface, and stuff on the surface presumably gets into the ocean water.' Not only does this mean the ocean and surface are dynamically interacting, but it also means that there may be more energy in the ocean than previously thought. Another finding is that the ocean below the icy surface of Europa is basically very similar to an ocean on Earth, giving the neglected and premier solar body for life past Earth another compelling reason for being explored."
Misread the title (Score:1, Funny)
At first glance I read the title as "Discovery Increases Odds of Life In Europe".
Re:Misread the title (Score:4, Funny)
Sadly, so did I, thinking that they finally left Leeds and discovered the existence of Amsterdam.
Re:Misread the title (Score:4, Funny)
I was more disturbed by the mention of "lent data" from ground based telescopes, which sounds like certain kinds of data collection were given up until Easter.
Agreed. (Score:5, Funny)
Almost certain he gets more probing as well.
We were warned (Score:2, Funny)
All these worlds
Are yours except
Europa
Attempt no
Landing there
Re:language issues? (Score:5, Funny)
"lent data"??? "honed in"????
Not sure what's up with "lent data". (Typo of "sent data"? Odd translation of an idiom from a non-English language?)
I've heard the "honed in" misusage a lot. It seems to be a Mondegreen> from "homed in" (like a homing pigeon.) [wikipedia.org]
Lent is the past tense of lend. Data from one discovery was lent to a totally different theory.
Honed in is fairly common usage when working toward a goal.
The so called "translation" is from a language called English, with which it appears you are only tangentially acquainted.
Re:All these worlds are yours, except Europa! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Europa was discovered in 1610 by Galileo... (Score:5, Funny)
So thats 1000kg...
Nobody ever says Megagram, or Megameter either for that matter. I for one would like to see that become commonplace.
I wouldn't count on that happening in the next couple of gigaseconds.
Re:but what if they do? (Score:2, Funny)
And you've sentenced them to extinction by sushi?
When they're approaching they'll get a message reading: