What is the surface like on Europa?

What is the surface like on Europa?

From ground-based telescopes, scientists knew that Europa’s surface is mostly water ice, and scientists have found strong evidence that beneath the ice crust is an ocean of liquid water or slushy ice.

Does Europa have a smooth surface?

Europa is one of the smoothest objects in the Solar System. Although there are many surface features, including craters, these are few and far between. It is believed that the surface of the moon orbiting Jupiter is a series of brittle tectonic ice plates moving on top of a warmer layer of convecting ice.

Can we land on Europa?

One calculated trajectory would see a launch aboard SLS in 2025, Earth gravity assist in 2027, and Jupiter/Europa arrival in 2030. It would spend some time orbiting around Jupiter over the next year to maneuver for its landing on Europa. The landing would be performed two years after orbit insertion around Jupiter.

Can humans live in Europa?

The type of life that might inhabit Europa likely would not be powered by photosynthesis – but by chemical reactions. Europa’s surface is blasted by radiation from Jupiter. That’s a bad thing for life on the surface – it couldn’t survive.

Can we drink water from Europa?

This may be the case inside Europa (Jupiter) and Enceladus (Saturn), but chemical reactions with the rock would make the liquid water salty, so not good to drink.

Can you breathe the air on Europa?

Europa has an extremely thin oxygen atmosphere — far too thin for humans to breathe.

Does Europa glow?

A recent study by Murthy Gudipati and Bryana Henderson at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory along with Fred Bateman at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, looked at Europa’s potential habitability and discovered something quite spectacular: the icy moon may glow in the dark.

Is Europa hot or cold?

The data show that midday temperatures at Europa’s equator reach about -225 degrees Fahrenheit (130 degrees Kelvin). The surface is even colder toward the poles and before or after midday.

How cold is Europa?

Temperatures range from as high as approximately 140 Kelvin (about -210 degrees Fahrenheit) in dark material at the moon’s equator to as low as approximately 50 Kelvin (-370 degrees Fahrenheit) in bright icy patches at the moon’s poles. Learn more about Europa here. How far away is Europa from the Sun?

Can I land on Jupiter?

Surface. As a gas giant, Jupiter doesn’t have a true surface. The planet is mostly swirling gases and liquids. While a spacecraft would have nowhere to land on Jupiter, it wouldn’t be able to fly through unscathed either.

Does Europa have oxygen?

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (HST) have identified the presence of an extremely tenuous atmosphere of molecular oxygen around Jupiter’s second moon, Europa.

Is Europa Radioactive?

As the icy, ocean-filled moon Europa orbits Jupiter, it withstands a relentless pummeling of radiation. Jupiter zaps Europa’s surface night and day with electrons and other particles, bathing it in high-energy radiation.

Can we live on Pluto?

Potential for Life The surface of Pluto is extremely cold, so it seems unlikely that life could exist there. At such cold temperatures, water, which is vital for life as we know it, is essentially rock-like. Pluto’s interior is warmer, however, and some think there could even be an ocean deep inside.

Does any other planet have oxygen?

Full Article. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has detected, for the first time ever, the presence of oxygen and carbon in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system. The oxygen naturally exists and is not produced by any sort of life on the gaseous hot world, astronomers caution.

Can you walk Europa?

Europa, the fourth-largest moon of Jupiter, is a subject in both science fiction and scientific speculation for future human colonization. Europa’s geophysical features, including a possible subglacial water ocean, make it a possibility that human life could be sustained on or beneath the surface.

Are there bacteria in Europa?

It turns out that one of the most common bacteria on Earth, Hyphomicrobium, survives on formaldehyde as its sole source of carbon, and Chyba believes that similar formaldehyde-feeding microbes could be alive and swimming in Europa’s subsurface ocean.

Is there salt on Europa?

Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the authors of today’s paper have detected one such feature, the first definitive spectral signature of a chloride on Europa. And not just any chloride, but our favorite salt sodium chloride (NaCl)!

Could Europa have fish?

That amount of oxygen would be enough to support more than just microscopic life-forms: At least three million tons of fishlike creatures could theoretically live and breathe on Europa, said study author Richard Greenberg of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

What is so unusual about Europa’s surface?

Europa has the smoothest surface of any known solid object in the Solar System. The apparent youth and smoothness of the surface have led to the hypothesis that a water ocean exists beneath the surface, which could conceivably harbor extraterrestrial life.

How thick is Europa surface?

Theory and observation indicate that Europa’s icy shell is around 15 to 25 kilometers (10 to 15 miles) thick, overlying an ocean approximately 60-150 kilometers (40 to 100 miles) deep. Most of Europa’s surface consists of bright water ice.

Is the water on Europa salty?

Table salt all but confirmed on its surface. Well, this is very cool news: Astronomers have pretty much confirmed the presence of sodium chloride — table salt — on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa!

How cold is Europa’s surface?

While the subsurface ocean is relatively warm (exact temperature not known yet), on the almost airless surface of Europa the temperatures are always a bitter minus 256 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 160 degrees Celsius) or lower.