Europa, The Possibility of Life

871 Words2 Pages

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.
In 1609, Galileo Galilei, using “spyglass” which allowed one to see things closer than they appeared, made an early version of the telescope. With it, he observed the skies in a way no one had before. He discovered the moon isn’t perfectly globular, it has craters, the Sun has sunspots, Venus orbits the Sun (contrary to widespread belief in his time), and then he observed four “stars” around Jupiter (“Our Solar System”). Within days, he realized that these objects were not stars, they were moons. Io, Ganymede, Castillo, and Europa are known as the Galilean Moons or Satellites, collectively. During the 19th century, the first measurable physical studies of these moons became achievable when Simon de Laplace derived the satellite masses from their shared gravitational perturbations and afterward, other workers used a new generation of telescopes to measure the mass of these moons. The data collected showed that the density declined from the inner to the outer satellites. According to Adam Showman, “More recent observations of water ice on the surfaces of the outer three moons led to the inference that the satellite compositions range from mostly silicate rock at Io to 60% silicate rock and 40% volatile ices (by mass) at Ganymede and Callisto” ( 77). The Voyager flybys of Jupiter in 1979 exposed indication of extensive geological activity like Europa's fractured terrains, which probably result from tidal heating and bending...

... middle of paper ...

...nal Geographic. National Geographic Society, 12 Dec. 2013. Web. 2 May 2014. .
Helmenstine, Anne M. "Colored Snow Chemistry - Causes of Colored Snow." About.com Chemistry. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 May 2014. .
"Our Solar System: Galileo's Observations of the Moon, Jupiter, Venus and the Sun." Solar System Exploration: Science & Technology: Science Features: Our Solar System: Galileo's Observations of the Moon, Jupiter, Venus and the Sun. NASA, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2014. .
Showman, Adam P. and Malhotra, Renu "The Galilean Satellites." Science 1 Oct. 1999: p77-p84

Show More
Related

  • What´s Out There? The Planet Jupiter

    1129 Words  | 3 Pages

    Have you ever looked up into the night skies and wondered what might be out there? One question I always wonder is where in the universe might there be a livable planet? Well the answer might be closer than you think, well actually 588 million kilometers away from earth. Jupiter of course is what I’m talking about. Fell first let’s ask the why we might move. Let’s face it earth is not going to be able to be habitable forever in fact ate the rate humans are polluting the atmosphere earth won’t be around that much longer. So might need a new place to live. So could the answer be Jupiter? Before that we need to know a little about the new planet and if it’s able to sustain life. Let’s start with the Jupiter’s history. Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. Jupiter was named after the king of the gods and Roman mythology. The ancient Greeks named the planet after Zeus, the king of the Greek pantheon. In 1610, a man that goes by the name “Galileo Galilei” was looking through his homemade telescope when he came across Jupiter. He notice four objects circling Jupiter and described them as "four fixed stars, totally invisible by their smallness" it was there were he discovered four large moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, which underwent several name change but are now known as the Galilean moons. This was the first time celestial bodies were seen circling an object other then Earth. Jupiter spins faster than any other planet, taking 10 hours to complete a turn on its axis, compared to that of 24 hours for Earth. This rapid spin makes Jupiter bulge at the equator and flatten at the poles, making the planet about 7 percent wider at the equator than at the poles. This is Jupiter and this is Jupiter next to the earth. Jup...

    Read More

  • Jupiter Research Paper

    1059 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jupiter has many moons, Sixty-seven actually. There are only four moons that scientists are very interested on. These four moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. The reasons scientists are so interested in these moons are since they might have found evidence of small life forms, such as bacteria and planets on these moons. The moon Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system. It would be interesting to find life on these planets.

    Read More

  • Galileo Starry Messenger

    699 Words  | 2 Pages

    Our Facsimile was a digitized copy of an original 1610 version from the National Library in Florence, Italy. Facsimiles reveal that when these were printed it was very difficult to make sure every copy was the same. Digital facsimiles lack the physical feeling that the physical books bring. In addition, the moons had a significant amount whitespace in the margins undermining the overall tone of the book. Moreover, the lack of detail in the duplicated images contradict Galileo’s original observations. They lack the effect of the grey and black shadows that proved that the moon rotated on its own axis. Due to the digital format and scanning software, the images were significantly darker and the rich detail of the shadows was gone. Instead, because this detail is left out from the facsimile it no longer becomes an example of how Galileo challenged the prior belief that the moon was “spherical and unchanging orb” (Dear 105). If someone was needing to research Galileo's drawing techniques they would need to visit the physical book. However, it is important to point out that these facsimile images were interpreted and printed in second hand and “by a Venetian artisan” and “feature craters that are exaggerated for effect” (Schmidle, 2013). When we examined the images of the moon it already passed through two separate modifiers. Viewing Galileo’s original observations of “rough and mountainous” (Dear 105) through the telescope even harder without Galileo’s real drawings

    Read More

  • Life on Europa

    601 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is without a doubt that the most fascinating thing about space is the possibility of life elsewhere beside Earth. It is estimated that the Milky Way Galaxy itself contains about 300 billion stars. Each star contains planets and some planets might even have moons. With these findings, the question is no longer whether life exists elsewhere. The probability that Earth is the only place where life exists in the universe is far too slim. NASA has identified many planets that have similar conditions to Earth but most of these planets are hundreds of light years away so traveling there to find out if there’s any living organism is not easy. Luckily, scientific evidences have pointed out that one of the moons of Jupiter, Europa, could be one of the places where life can exist. If the theories proposed by astronomers about Europa are true, life on Europa might not even be entirely different than life near the bottom of Earth’s oceans.

    Read More

  • Essay On Europa

    711 Words  | 2 Pages

    Europa is an icy moon of the planet Jupiter. It is the fourth largest moon of Jupiter, and the sixth largest moon in the solar system, being slightly smaller than Earth's moon. Europa, along with three other moons of Jupiter, Io, Ganymede, and Callisto, was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei, and has been studied by humans using telescopes and space probes since the 20th century. Europa is believed to have a global ocean of water with a rocky seafloor. If this ocean floor is proven true, Europa could be a candidate for life beyond Earth.

    Read More

  • Impact Crater Research Paper

    736 Words  | 2 Pages

    This began when the Italian astronomer Galileo looked at the moon through a telescope and saw circular forms covering the moon’s surface. After observing the movement of shadows he determined that these features were indents on the surface, rather than mountains. Following this discovery, in 1610 Galileo published Sidereus Nuncius, also known as The Starry Messenger, which showed the first drawings of impact craters (Gaz 9) While Galileo did not have any opinion on how the craters were formed, other scientist did. Most followed the theory that they were formed by volcanic activity, as it was most common on Earth. The first scientist to speculate that the depressions were made by an impact was the British physicist Robert Hooke. He conducted an experiment that included him dropping objects into mud, creating craters similar to those on Earth. Unfortunately, during the time of these experiments, it was believed that space contained of only eight objects, and the rest was empty (Gaz 9). At the time, astronomers knew only of the sun, moon, and the planets Earth, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Any other planets or asteroids were thought to have existed. Meteorites only began their believed existence after a meteorite shower came down on the town of L’Aigle, France in 1803. Following this event, a French astronomer known as Jean-Baptiste Biot explained how these rocks must have been of

    Read More

  • Habitable Zone Research Paper

    637 Words  | 2 Pages

    In contrast, many icy bodies, such as Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, do not release large amounts of greenhouse gases via volcanoes. As such, researchers wanted to see how these worlds evolved if they had only the light of their stars to help warm

    Read More

  • Pluto: A Planet?

    1670 Words  | 4 Pages

    On the other hand, Pluto is larger than the other 40 known moons in the solar system. There is no scientific reason to arbitrarily distinguish between planets and asteroids based on the sizes of the moons that happen to be present in a planetary system.... ... middle of paper ... ... 78, No. 1, pp. 113-117.

    Read More

  • The Jovian Planets

    2897 Words  | 6 Pages

    Jupiter, the first of the jovian planets, reigns supreme throughout the solar system. Named after the Roman god Jove, the ruler of Olympus; Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun and is also the largest planet in the Earth’s solar system. It is 318 times more massive than Earth and is two thirds of the planetary mass in the solar system. Jupiter’s surface, unlike earth, is gaseous and not a solid. It is about 90% hydrogen and 10% helium with traces of methane, ammonia, water and rock. Jupiter’s interior is very similar to the Sun’s interior but with a far lower temperature. However, it is still unknown but Jupiter is believed to have a core of liquid metallic hydrogen. This exotic element can only be achieved at pressure greater than 4 million bars. Jupiter radiates more energy in space than it receives from the sun. The interior of Jupiter is hot and has been estimated to be 20000 degrees Kelvin. The heat is generated by the Kelvin- Hemholtz mechanism, or the gravitational compression of a planet. It gives off about 1.5 to 2 times more energy than the sun. It is speculated that the source of this heat is due to the rapid rotation of the planet and it’s liquid metallic hydrogen core.

    Read More

  • Terrestrial and Jovian Planets

    1317 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lunine, Jonathon I. “The Occurrence of Jovian Planets and the Habitability of Planetary Systems.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 98n3 (2001): 809-814.

    Read More

  • Venus: The Second Planet from the Sun

    1036 Words  | 3 Pages

    Venus, the second planet closest to the Sun and Earth’s closest neighbor, is known for its many wonders and harsh conditions. Venus is possibly the first planet discovered by humans and is said to have been first discovered in 17 B.C. by Babylonian astronomers. Venus is the first planet to be explored by spacecraft although many of these attempts have proven unsuccessful. Fortunately, more than twenty of the spacecraft explorations been proven successful, and through those we have gained knowledge about this wonder of the night sky.

    Read More

  • Galileo Galilei Research Paper

    563 Words  | 2 Pages

    In August, Galileo demonstrated it to some Venetian merchants. in 1609, he made the decision to turn his telescope towards the sky. In March 1610, he published a small booklet, The Starry Messenger, revealing his discoveries that the moon was not flat and smooth, but that it was a sphere with mountains and craters. He also He also found Venus had phases like the moon. He discovered Jupiter had revolving moons.

    Read More

  • Life on Other planets.

    1544 Words  | 4 Pages

    Mars is a very similar planet to earth in relation to size and atmosphere. Therefore it seemed like the most likely place to search for life. At the end of the 19th century, an American named Percival Lowell built himself an observatory so that it was possible for him to study Mars in intimate detail when its orbit was closest to Earth. At this time it had recently been suggested that the planet had a system of channels on the surface, present from the evaporation of flowing water. Looking through his telescope Lowell became convinced he could see a network of artificial canals. This led him to believe that there were intelligent beings on Mars who had built these canals. However, spacecraft have now visited Mars and found that there is no evidence of water at all. It is now thought that the lines he could see were the combination of Lowell's overactive imagination, and scratches on the lens of his telescope. We are now searching one of Jupiter's moons, Europa, as this seems to be the next likely place to hold life.

    Read More

  • Mercury Essay

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun. It includes 4 rings. It has 67 moons too. The surface temperature is -108 degrees celsius. Jupiter is the fourth shiniest object in the the sky. Jupiter has the shortest amount of days, hence 9 hours and 55 minutes. Jupiter will orbit the sun every 118 Earth years. The red spot on Jupiter is an enormous storm on the planet. The storm has occurred for 350 years. 3 Earths can fit in the red

    Read More

  • Galileo Galilei

    750 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1609 the telescope was invented and Galileo began making his own lenses for better telescopes and then started looking at the sky. In December and January (1609-1610) it is said that he made more discoveries that changed the world that anyone has made before or since. He wrote a book called the “Starry Messenger”, and said that there were mountains on the moon, the Milky Way was made up of many stars, and there were small bodies in orbit around Jupiter. He used his mathematical skills to calculate the motions of these bodies around Jupiter. In 1610 he started looking at Saturn and discovered the rings, and the phases of Saturn (just like our moon’s phases).

    Read More

More about Europa, The Possibility of Life

Open Document