From the “ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS—EXCEPT EUROPA ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE” department.
NASA to Hold Media Call on Evidence of Surprising Activity on Europa
NASA will host a teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 26, to present new findings from images captured by the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa.
Astronomers will present results from a unique Europa observing campaign that resulted in surprising evidence of activity that may be related to the presence of a subsurface ocean on Europa. Participants in the teleconference will be:
- Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington
- William Sparks, astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore
- Britney Schmidt, assistant professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta
- Jennifer Wiseman, senior Hubble project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland
To participate by phone, media must contact Dwayne Brown at 202-358-1726 or dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov and provide their media affiliation no later than noon Monday.
Audio of the teleconference will stream live on NASA’s website at:
For information about NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, visit:
-end-
“Astronomers will present results from a unique Europa observing campaign that resulted in surprising evidence of activity that may be related to the presence of a subsurface ocean on Europa,”
That gives a wide latitude, it could mean anything from discovering plate tectonics like we have on Earth, to discovering what looks like algal type blooms that discolor sections of the frozen ocean based on seasonal changes.
Astrobiologists have long regarded Europa as one of the solar system’s best bets to host alien life. So did Arthur C. Clarke in his followup story to 2001, A space Odyssey with 2010: Odyssey Two, which is where that famous “attempt no landing there” phrase comes from. Europa is a 1,900-mile-wide (3,100 kilometers) moon of Jupiter that apparently holds a huge ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell; furthermore, astronomers think this ocean is in contact with Europa’s rocky mantle, making possible all sorts of interesting chemical reactions that could create life, much like what we witness near deep sea hydrothermal vents in Earth’s oceans.
What is most interesting is that the scientists that run the JUNO probe don’t want to let it crash land there like has been done on so many other moons and planets. They don’t want to risk it contaminating the moon.
NASA did say this in response to some outlandish speculation:
Monday, we’ll announce new findings from Jupiter’s moon Europa. Spoiler alert: NOT aliens: https://t.co/3IHT9H9Idp pic.twitter.com/11lHwsDzvv
— NASA (@NASA) September 21, 2016
We’ll be watching with great interest.
Thanks Anthony, the Jupiter System is pretty cool, with its moons and all.. a subsystem within the Solar system.
Ran across an article today on how we are now better able to pin point where solar storms will produce/affect ground currents on Earth.
There is also a link to the technical document, with open access. (new and no paywall, thanks)
U.S. Sharpens Surveillance of Crippling Solar Storms
Next-generation space weather model will map the danger facing power grids
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-sharpens-surveillance-of-crippling-solar-storms/
By Alexandra Witze, Nature magazine on September 20, 2016
…As early as the end of this month, NOAA should have a much better idea of just how dangerous those electromagnetic storms are. The agency will begin releasing forecasts that use a more sophisticated model to predict how incoming solar storms could fry electrical power grids. It will be the clearest guide yet as to which utility operators, in what parts of the world, need to worry.
“This is the first time we will get short-term forecasts of what the changes at the surface of the Earth will be,” says Bob Rutledge, lead forecaster at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. “We can tell a power-grid customer not only that it will be a bad day, but give them some heads-up on what exactly they will be facing.”…
…Until now, NOAA had warned of solar activity using the planetary K-index, a scale that ranks the current geomagnetic threat to the entire Earth. The new ‘geospace’ forecast, which draws on more than two decades of research, comes in the form of a map showing which areas are likely to be hit hardest….
…In their latest paper, Love, Pulkkinen and their colleagues describe the most detailed map of these ‘geoelectric hazards’ across part of the United States (J. J. Love et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. http://doi.org/bqpm; 2016). Of the areas surveyed so far, those at the highest risk are the upper Midwestern states of Minnesota and Wisconsin, where complex geology induces strong electrical currents.
Adding in 3D models of these ground currents will improve the next generation of NOAA forecasts, Rutledge says. “This is by no means the end.”…
Geoelectric hazard maps for the continental United States
Jeffrey J. Love, Antti Pulkkinen, Paul A. Bedrosian,
Seth Jonas, Anna Kelbert, E. Joshua Rigler, Carol A. Finn,
Christopher C. Balch, Robert Rutledge,
Richard M. Waggel, Andrew T. Sabata, Janet U. Kozyra, Carrie E. Black
First published: 19 September 2016
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL070469/full
NASA will announce that they have located the Pirate Twins.
Europa and the Pirate Twins. Song by Thomas Dolby.
Does our moon spin or not?
Given we’re talking about moons I’d like to raise an issue with this free-thinking illustrious group that has really puzzled me. I always understood that our moon does not spin on its polar axis. I can understand clearly, within the context of the 6 degrees of freedom it has in 3 dimensional space how it can orbit earth and still only show one face to our planet. In fact, my understanding if is spun on its axis at any speed whatsoever that it could not show only one side to the earth permanently. Much to my surprise I see that Nasa have on their website the following:
Misconception: The Moon does not rotate.
Reality: The Moon does spin on its axis, completing a rotation once every 27.3 days; the confusion is caused because it also takes the same period to orbit the Earth, so that it keeps the same side facing us.
at http://moon.nasa.gov/moonmisconceptions.cfm
and plenty of other places on the web saying likewise. However, I call in defence of my position that it does not spin no less than Nikolai Tesla who produced the paper below showing/’proving’ that the moon does not have angular momentum about its polar axis.
http://www.teslauniverse.com/nikola-tesla/articles/moons-rotation
http://www.teslauniverse.com/sites/default/files/article_files/19190400-01.pdf
What gives here? How come Nasa are saying it is spinning? Is this just a frame of reference issue? I find it very intriguing and wonder have I mis-understood the issue entirely as, if I’m (and Tesla!) are correct, then Nasa have made an egregious error here.
Can anyone enlighten me?
Think of a car in a curve. The vehicle doesn’t rotate in relation to it’s respectively movement, in relation to the driven route upon the street.
Although it rounds the center of the curve.
Of course you’re right, hoplit the motion of the moon is simply straight forward :
steal the earth from the center of the trajectory and the moon moves straight forward, spin around the moons axis long gone.
So after the curve that car plain rolls on; and freed from the trajectory around earth, by an outer force, the moon would move straight along, no spin around its axis.
Johann, I’m a bit puzzled by what you’re saying as this last point you made substantiates what I am saying. The law of conservation of momentum doesn’t allow the spin momentum to just disappear. The circular motion momentum is preserved in your example in the car continuing along in a straight line. If, as you say ‘no spin around its axis’ after it moves straight along that can only mean it never had spin in the first place. I’m not certain but I think people are confusing circular (but linear) motion with rotational motion.
So now let us drive your car around your curve, but we do it on the local ice yachting lake; smooth ice, without spiked tires. Yes it’s a Subaru so it has all wheel drive.
Will the car rotate now ?? or just sit still in one place ??
G
NASA is right. The fact that you always see the same face and can see it doing phases demonstrates that it rotates relative to the sun, but at a rate matching the earth orbiting speed.
EM Smith & Johann – think of the 6 degrees of freedom the moon has: 3 linear (heave, surge, sway) and 3 rotational (roll, pitch, yaw). I contend that the movement of the moon is purely the former three and with no movement in the later three. In order for an object to have movement in the latter three degrees it means it must be moving about an axis that goes through the body itself (centred if symmetrical rotation or off-centred if it’s an irregular spin). If the object is moving about an axis outside of the body only then the object has only linear motion (yes, it is circular but linear motion doesn’t have to be straight lines!).
The moon has no angular momentum (i.e. it doesn’t spin about any axis internal to its boundary – symmetrical or otherwise). On the other hand the earth has linear motion (orbiting the sun) AND rotational motion (spinning on its polar axis).
The fact that the moon shows all sides of itself to an observer standing on the surface of the sun does not mean that the moon has rotational motion itself but that it has linear motion around a fixed distance from an external axis and the observer is located outside of the circular (but linear motion) path that it is on.
Consider the tennis game that was popular 30 years’ ago where a tennis ball was on a 1.5 metre string and it went around a 2 metre pole stuck in the ground. To an observer at the pole the tennis ball always shows the same face (it has to as the string won’t let it spin on its ‘polar’ axis) but to an observer outside the path of the tennis ball (i.e the players of the game) it was showing all sides of the tennis ball as it travels around the pole. There’s no rotational motion (possibly is on the axis described by the line of the string but not on the axis perpendicular to it.
I note that NASA are saying the spin of the moon and orbit are coincidentally in lock step so we see only one side of it. There’s nothing coincidental here – the moon isn’t spinning on its polar axis at all.
Another way to think of linear and rotational movement is as follows:
1. Linear straight line motion: all atoms in the fixed body are moving in the same direction and at the same velocity
2. Linear curved motion: all atoms in the fixed body are moving in the same direction but at different velocities (this is why we have to have differential gearing in cars as inside and outside wheels move at different velocities around corners)
3. Rotational motion: atoms in the fixed body travelling in different directions and at different velocities.
A fully free fixed body has the following total of 6 combinations of possible movements: 0, 1, 2, 3, 1 & 3 or 2 & 3. 1&2 are contradictory and 1&2&3 are, therefore, also contradictory.
Should have ended with earth moves in 2&3 but moon in 2 only.
So let us take a spherical solid body sitting stationary in free space. No motion of any kind relative to the co-ordinate frame.
It is not translating, and it is not rotating.
If I then move it in a straight line in the X direction, it is now translating, but it is not rotating.
If I move it in a straight line in the Y direction, it is translating but it is not rotating.
If I move it in a straight line in any direction with a X component, and Y component, it is still translating and still not rotating.
This is true, no matter how far I move it, and for any Vy / Vx ratio.
So if I continue to move it in a sequence of interleaved x and y steps, it continues to move and it continues to not rotate.
What if I move it in four steps of equal x and y but alternating in sign +x, +y, -x, -y ……
Now it moves around a square path, but it does not rotate.
That square of side 2a has the equation x^infinity + y^infinity = a^infinity
Well I don’t like that, so I’ll make it x^n + y^n = a^n where n has any positive value from down to but not including zero, and up to but not including infinity.
So starting with the Square path case, with translation but no rotation, I now reduce the value of n.
It will be found that the sides are now no longer straight lines, every point on that pseudo-square path has a finite non zero curvature.
The body continues to translate, but it never starts to rotate.
At any time, at any point in the path, I can stop the movement completely. The angular momentum of the object never changes.
Eventually, I will end up with n = 2.0 ……
So just when did the object start spinning.
Any forces applied to the body to get it to move (if such is needed) are applied exactly at the center of this completely symmetrical spherical object, so no torque is ever applied.
Tesla was at least as bright as Elon Musk; but only just.
G
Same as the drivers side in a left turn always points to the center of the curve.
Unless you are in Florida where drivers always do the opposite.
Seeing later alligators.
If NASA’s pattern holds, the Big Announcement will be a pretty mundane observation followed by extensive fundraising.
I *hope* it will be something actually interesting, but it would be uncharacteristic.
Though it is now controversial, we have already gone through the “bacterial life outside of Earth” announcement, so that will be less exciting than some people think it would be.
Waiting until Monday is just using the news cycle.
@Ronald P Ginzler
Official leak: NASA reveals Europa is ONE GIANT ORGANISM. All those veins on the surface…
Ah… so Professor Challenger was right…?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_World_Screamed
am watching that movie right now 🙂
Maybe Europa is at war with Titan? The strange cloud recently reported on Titan may be the result of an attack – those water vapor fountains may be the equivalent of ‘chem trails’ from departing missiles! /sarc
Ciao
John
I guess I don’t “get it” as to why they don’t land…they have no problem “contaminating” everything else…. For all they knew, there was life on Mars – but they didn’t let that stop them. Just sayin….
Maybe they will announce that they have found the missing heat that was supposedly going into our oceans but was not seen by the ARGO bouys.
CO2 has many mysterious powers such that anything is possible
It seems pretty clear that there’s intelligent life on Europa, we can see quite clearly that they have a sophisticated network of canals!
Will this announcement be before or after the 1st presidential debate? If there are worms on Europa, will Hillary, or Trump say “I told you so”?
steal the earth <- if I should have typed 'steel'.
I’m surprised that Geraldo is not doing a one hour lead in special for this announcement.
Anything short of discovering a black rectangular monolith on thetonynas surface of Europa will be dissapointing
They are probably just going to announce that they need lots of money to study something that they just made up.
I hate being cynical…. but these are cynical times.
NASA ANNOUNCEMENT RE: EUROPA
Dear Europan Neighbor,
Starting Monday September 26th [Earth calendar] technicians will be in your area to demonstrate and and introduce lucky customers our new exciting new line of services, which include 50 premium TV channels, telephone with unlimited free continental long distance, Internet with speeds of up to 0.0001Mbps (pings less than 1.5 hours!) and bonded central alarm security monitoring. If you are willing to let us place a sign your front law you get a cash back bonus! Early signers get no payments for one solar rotation, chances are limited! So don’t stay under the ice… make contact with us today!
Reminds me of the Clinton regime when NASA announced finding “evidence” of life on Mars. Turned out, after the election, to be just oxide deposit like titanomagnitite. Someone should have taken a class in oxide mineralogy.
Ha ha
Attempt at National Distraction about Monica Lewinsky and “Cigar Gate”. Remember!
Tunnel vision and grandstanding are a bad combination.
And the same party went on to put John Holdren on national TV to pronounce global warming caused the polar votex winter cold with unsupported sources that were withheld with the same stall and delay tactics used on all the other grand standing. That amounts to a pattern of Party stupidity and not just one administration representing it.
NASA did release this item a couple days ago on Titan.
http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasa-scientists-find-impossible-cloud-on-titan-again
just don’t wear any shirts with chicks on them …
I found the inclusion of Britney Schmidt to the panel curious, so looked her up. This probably hints at what the presser is about:
http://cstar.gatech.edu/britney-schmidt
“Professor Schmidt’s area of interest and expertise is planetary ices and the early solar system. She is keenly interested in the habitability of icy worlds and collaborates actively with both geophysicists and biologists. From 2007 until present, Schmidt has assisted NASA Science Definition Teams for Europa missions in both assistant and advisory roles and played a key role in developing the recent Europa Clipper and Europa Lander mission concepts. As a fellow and research scientist at the University of Texas, she gained hands-on experience with Earth’s ice shelves, including the use of imaging and ice penetrating radar, to inform future studies of Europa. Her 2011 Nature paper advanced critical hypotheses regarding subsurface beneath chaos terrain on Europa. She is a co-investigator on a topographic imaging instrument selected for development for the future Europa Clipper Mission. She is the principal investigator of Sub-Ice Marine and Planetary Analog Ecosystems (SIMPLE) that will accomplish a comprehensive study of geophysics and biology beneath the McMurdo Ice Shelf using integrated imaging, ice penetrating radar, and subsurface exploration by marine vehicles. She has participated in two Antarctica field seasons, leading SIMPLE’s exploration in 2012, and will again deploy in 2014-2016.”
No relation to Gavin, I hope.
Presumably they’ll announce that the surface ice is seen to be moving around, so indicating a liquid ocean beneath the surface ice. At the least, some surface features are changing.
They will claim to have found evidence that AGW has spread to Europa. This will distract from Hillary’s mounting woes and of course help fund more of NASA’s budget.
Organic compounds would be better than Clinton meteorites with common mineral morphologies.
Deep thoughts, by Robert Pappalardo
~ Europa is the most likely place to find life in the solar system today ~
NASA has discovered that Quantum entanglement has meant that CO2 increases on earth causes Climate Change on Europa and predicts the same entanglement will cause the sun to explode 1.2433666 years earlier than it otherwise would – please panic, think of the children and grandchildren (to the power of 27) , NASA recommend mankind dismantling of civilization oh, and please send money.
/sarc
that was sure suspenseful and well worth the wait!
what was it?