Some Real life Alien Actic Biomes to Visit
BlueBottle
Australia Join Date: 2018-02-03 Member: 236674Members
Australia Join Date: 2018-02-03 Member: 236674Members
Space Cadets!
A couple of icy ocean worlds were turned up by the recent Cassini space probe. One is Europa, a moon orbiting Jupiter. The other one is Enceladus, orbiting Saturn.
Despite being really far far away from the Sun they still seem to remain liquid under their icy crusts. Seems this is due to them being regularly squished like tennis balls by the tidal stresses from orbiting their massive planets.
It's now considered that these moons hold the best chance of finding extraterrestrial life in our Solar System. Plans are in works to get a bunch more probes to Europa, one even to test habitability. My favourite is one to get a probe in through the ice - most likely by melting its way in using a mini nuclear reactor, which will then sploosh in and swim about.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)#Future_missions
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/nasa-eyes-possible-landing-jupiters-europa
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-missions-provide-new-insights-into-ocean-worlds-in-our-solar-system
A couple of icy ocean worlds were turned up by the recent Cassini space probe. One is Europa, a moon orbiting Jupiter. The other one is Enceladus, orbiting Saturn.
Despite being really far far away from the Sun they still seem to remain liquid under their icy crusts. Seems this is due to them being regularly squished like tennis balls by the tidal stresses from orbiting their massive planets.
It's now considered that these moons hold the best chance of finding extraterrestrial life in our Solar System. Plans are in works to get a bunch more probes to Europa, one even to test habitability. My favourite is one to get a probe in through the ice - most likely by melting its way in using a mini nuclear reactor, which will then sploosh in and swim about.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(moon)#Future_missions
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/nasa-eyes-possible-landing-jupiters-europa
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-missions-provide-new-insights-into-ocean-worlds-in-our-solar-system
Comments
coincidently I just watched a new minutephysics video on Europa cycloids.
BTW, did they ever find out what the red stuff was? I saw in a a doco a while back they thought it might indicate bacterial activity.
According to wikipedia it is theorized to be salt, but until there's a dedicated mission to explore this moon we probably won't know for sure. There will be a couple of flybys over it soon though.