Re: New Study Of Jupiter's Moon Europa May Explain Mysterious Ice Domes, Places To Search For Evidence Of Life

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Ron Baalke
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2003/340.html
> 
> New Study Of Jupiter's Moon Europa May Explain
> Mysterious Ice Domes, Places To Search For Evidence
> Of Life 
> 
> University of Colorado at Boulder News Release
> September 2, 2003
> 
> A new University of Colorado at Boulder study of Jupiter's
> moon Europa may help explain the origin of the giant ice
> domes peppering its surface and the implications for
> discovering evidence of past or present life forms there. 
> 
> Assistant Professor Robert Pappalardo and doctoral student
> Amy Barr previously believed the mysterious domes may be
> formed by blobs of ice from the interior of the frozen shell that
> were being pushed upward by thermal upwelling from warmer
> ice underneath. Europa is believed to harbor an ocean
> beneath its icy surface. 
> 
> But the scientists now think the dome creation also requires
> small amounts of impurities, such as sodium chloride or
> sulfuric acid. Basically the equivalent of table salt or battery
> acid, these compounds melt ice at low temperatures, allowing
> warmer, more pristine blobs of ice to force the icy surface up
> in places, creating the domes. 
> 
> "We have been trying for some time to understand how these
> ice blobs can push up through the frozen shell of Europa,
> which is likely about 13 miles thick," said Pappalardo of the
> astrophysical and planetary sciences department. "Our
> models now show that a combination of upwelling warm ice in
> the frozen shell's interior, combined with small amounts of
> impurities such as sodium chloride or sulfuric acid, would
> provide enough of a force to form these domes." 
> 
> A paper on the subject co-authored by Pappalardo and Barr
> was presented at the annual Division of Planetary Sciences
> Meeting held Sept. 2 through Sept. 6 in Monterey, Calif. DPS
> is an arm of the American Astronomical Society. The meeting
> schedule is available at
> http://dps03.arc.nasa.gov/administrative/schedule/index.html. 
> 
> Europa appears to have strong tidal action as it elliptically
> orbits Jupiter - strong enough "to squeeze the moon" and
> heat its interior, said Pappalardo. "Warm ice blobs rise
> upward through the ice shell toward the colder surface,
> melting out saltier regions in their path. The less dense blobs
> can continue rising all the way to the surface to create the
> observed domes." 
> 
> The domes are huge - some more than four miles in diameter
> and 300 feet high - and are found in clusters on Europa's
> surface, said Barr, who did much of the modeling. "We are
> excited about our research, because we think it now is
> possible that any present or past life or even just the
> chemistry of the ocean may be lifted to the surface, forming
> these domes. It essentially would be like an elevator ride for
> microbes." 
> 
> Barr likened the upwelling of warmer ice from the inner ice
> shell to its surface to a pot of boiling spaghetti sauce. "The
> burner under the pan sends the hottest sauce to the top,
> creating the bubbles at the surface," she said. "The trouble is
> Europa's icy skin is as cold and as hard as a rock." 
> 
> The idea that either small amounts of salt or sulfuric acid
> might help to create Europa's domes was Pappalardo's, who
> knew about similar domes on Earth that form in clumps in
> arid regions. On Earth, it is salt that is buoyant enough to
> move up through cracks and fissures in rock formations to
> form dome clusters at the surface. 
> 
> "In addition, infrared and color images taken of Europa by
> NASA's Galileo spacecraft seem to indicate some of the ice
> on the surface of these domes is contaminated. Impurities
> seen at the surface are clues to the internal composition of
> the Jovian moon, telling of a salty ice shell," he said. 
> 
> "The surface of Europa is constantly being blasted by
> radiation from Jupiter, which likely precludes any life on the
> moon's surface," said Barr. "But a spacecraft might be able to
> detect signs of microbes just under the surface." 
> 
> Both Pappalardo and Barr also are affiliated with
> CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space
> Physics. The project was funded by NASA's Exobiology
> Program and Graduate Student Research Program. 
> 
> Pappalardo recently served on a National Research Council
> panel that reaffirmed a spacecraft should be launched in the
> coming decade with the goal of orbiting Europa. He currently
> is part of a NASA team developing goals for the Jupiter Icy
> Moons Orbiter mission. 
> 
> The scientific objectives of the mission probably will include
> confirming the presence of an ocean at Europa, remotely
> measuring the composition of the surface and scouting out
> potential landing sites for a follow-on lander mission. 

What a null content post.  NASA hopes there's life on Europa even
though they don't have a clue as to the origin of life on the Earth. 
Their logic goes like this.  Earth has oceans, Earth has life, Europa
may have a subsurface ocean therefore Europa may have life.  So what if
Europa does have life.  NASA still won't understand the origin or
nature of life anyway.  

CC