[HN Gopher] NASA's Webb finds carbon source on surface of Jupite...
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NASA's Webb finds carbon source on surface of Jupiter's moon Europa
Author : jonathankoren
Score : 207 points
Date : 2023-09-21 18:52 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (webbtelescope.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (webbtelescope.org)
| grecy wrote:
| Can Webb image Europa?
| acqq wrote:
| The article is very precise:
|
| "Both teams identified the carbon dioxide using data from the
| integral field unit of _Webb's Near-Infrared Spectrograph_
| (NIRSpec). This instrument mode provides spectra with a
| resolution of 200 x 200 miles (320 x 320 kilometers) on the
| surface of Europa, which has a diameter of 1,944 miles,
| allowing astronomers to determine where specific chemicals are
| located. "
|
| Wikipedia article about the NIRSpec:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIRSpec
| svachalek wrote:
| Yes, the NIRCam images in the article are from the Webb
| telescope.
| eganist wrote:
| > Can Webb image Europa?
|
| The implication by the presence of "Europa Carbon Dioxide
| Distribution" (NIRCam and NIRSpec IFU) images on the NASA
| release is that yes, it can.
| icapybara wrote:
| There's an image of Europa from Webb in the article.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| It's less clear than I'd expected. Is that image deliberately
| downscaled so as to not reveal the true capabilities of the
| telescope optics?
| flangola7 wrote:
| Not reveal the true capabilities? Is this an RPG reference?
| acqq wrote:
| It's as designed:
|
| "Both teams identified the carbon dioxide using data from
| the integral field unit of Webb's Near-Infrared
| Spectrograph (NIRSpec). This instrument mode provides
| spectra with a resolution of 200 x 200 miles (320 x 320
| kilometers) on the surface of Europa, which has a diameter
| of 1,944 miles"
| dylan604 wrote:
| Only if your IP address has been listed as suspicious. For
| the rest of us, we see an non-manipulated image.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Webb has two main instruments and one of them is not very
| high resolution (but I think it's the one that gets good
| spectral data). When you browse the raw Webb images on the
| nasa website you see a mix of high res and low res images
| and they are each attributed to one of the two instruments.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| No, moons are not very big.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| No, I doubt it.
|
| Europa is fairly small and very far away.
|
| For reference, the best photos we had of Pluto prior to the
| fly-by were from the Hubble telescope, and were even
| grainier.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| You can probably even find the raw data for the image on
| one of NASA's sites soon if not already available. This
| isn't a spy satellite where there's a strategic need to
| hide the capabilities of the optics. If anything, it's more
| valuable to show off the capabilities because of how it's
| somewhat of a prestige project.
| mlyle wrote:
| In addition to moons being big and far away, the specific
| instrument here (a spectrograph) is not very high
| resolution-- at least spatially. For each "pixel", it
| measures the brightness of many wavelengths of light.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Is this post trying to imply they found aliens and are
| hiding them?
| wantoncl wrote:
| No, just some black monoliths on the surface ;)
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| No, they're quite open about the capabilities of the optics
| (see https://webb.nasa.gov/content/forScientists/faqScienti
| sts.ht...). It's just that Europa is very far away.
|
| Webb's mirror system has an angular resolution of about 0.1
| arcseconds. Earth is currently about 630 million km from
| Europa (Webb is only 1.5 million km away from earth).
| Because the sine of theta is approximately equal to theta
| for values of theta near zero, you can get the diameter of
| a 0.1 arcsecond cone at x km from Earth by multiplying by
| 0.00000485 = sin(2pi/360 _3600).
|
| 0.1 _ 0.00000485 * 630000000 = 305 km
|
| The article says the pixels are about 320 km, so the math
| works out pretty close (for astronomy).
|
| Those magnificent images of black holes and galaxies that
| are way more distant, but also way _way_ bigger. This isn
| 't downscaled when you compare it to gorgeous, sharper
| images like those at [1], a 340 _light-year_ wide multi-
| image mosaic of the Tarantula Nebula, which is "only"
| 161000 light years away, that width is 1/500th the distance
| and Europa's width is 1/20,000th the distance.
|
| In space, intuition about distances that you've built up
| from using your eyeballs on human-scale terrestrial objects
| just doesn't work, you've got to do the math.
|
| [1]: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/a-cosmic-
| tarantula...
| superhumanuser wrote:
| This reply is why I love the audience on HN. Thank you
| for your detailed comment.
| grecy wrote:
| Thanks for the detailed comment, that is incredibly
| helpful info.
| jonplackett wrote:
| I wish every website I visited had comments of this
| quality...
| philomath_mn wrote:
| For the conspiracy theorists: this is the same reason why
| we can't just point Webb at the moon and get pictures of
| the lunar landing sites. In terms of arcseconds of the
| Webb's FOV, the moon landing site is much smaller than
| these distant galaxies (which blows my mind just how big
| those distant "objects" are).
| ceejayoz wrote:
| We can image the lunar landing sites with lunar orbiters,
| though. Footsteps and all!
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-
| sites.htm...
| philomath_mn wrote:
| Right -- they are a bit closer than Webb :D
| colechristensen wrote:
| No. JWST is not a spy satellite. Everybody gets the images
| as measured. Different instruments have different
| resolutions.
| Electricniko wrote:
| As others have said, you're looking at the image. We'll have to
| wait for a bit before we get some really good images of Europa.
| From Google:
|
| NASA's Europa Clipper is the first dedicated mission to explore
| a world with a global ocean, other than Earth. The spacecraft
| is scheduled to launch in October 2024 and will arrive at
| Europa in 2030. The mission will study Europa's surface and
| interior to determine if it has the ingredients to support
| life. The spacecraft will make about 50 close flybys of Europa
| while orbiting Jupiter.
|
| Also see some of the images from Juno if you want a better look
| at the moon.
| perfect-blue wrote:
| I'm not sure, it's the sensor that worries me. The sensor isn't
| even big enough to image uranus.
| poopbutt7 wrote:
| Is the significance of CO2's presence 1) it's necessary
| ingredient for (our) life, 2) it's a likely biproduct of life, or
| both?
| gpm wrote:
| Note that mars's atmosphere has more CO2 in it (per unit
| volume! Despite having almost no atmosphere) than Earth's does.
| Definitely not 2.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The first one. It can be produced through non-biological
| processes and is fairly stable, but is also necessary for "life
| as we know it".
|
| Gaseous oxygen would be 2 - it's highly reactive, so if you
| detect it in an atmosphere, it means there must be some kind of
| activity going on that replenishes it. On Earth, it's what life
| does.
| analog31 wrote:
| A rapid change in CO2 concentration could be a clue that
| something such as life is rearranging the molecules on a
| planet. In fact, I think the aliens have been monitoring us
| with a spectrometer for a few million years, and have guessed
| that we're here.
| [deleted]
| dmix wrote:
| > a fascinating world with a salty, subsurface ocean of liquid
| water--possibly twice as much as in all of Earth's oceans
| combined.
|
| If we brought water back a container of water from Europa would
| this be the largest amount of new water entering the earth since
| planets struck it billions of years ago?
|
| I briefly googled it (I dont know much about this stuff tbh):
|
| > The water on our Earth today is the same water that's been here
| for nearly 5 billion years. So far, we haven't managed to create
| any new water, and just a tiny fraction of our water has managed
| to escape out into space. The only thing that changes is the form
| that water takes as it travels through the water cycle.
|
| Anyway interesting thought experiment.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Comets do fall from time to time, and Earth collects 5000 tons
| of debri from space each year. So I imagine Earth does gain a
| few tons of water from time to time.
| dmix wrote:
| Oh good point, I didn't think about Comets.
| tracedddd wrote:
| Don't commercial hydrogen fuel cells create water as a
| byproduct?
| biggestlou wrote:
| I'm still looking for intelligent life on _this_ planet!
| monlockandkey wrote:
| Europa is definitely the most exciting part of the solar system
| that sparks imagination. Literally 100s of miles of pitch black
| ocean with thermal vents, ripe for life. Getting kiddy thinking
| about the leviathan sized aliens roaming the deep ocean of
| Europa. Does anyone else feel this way?
| yakz wrote:
| Could you have leviathan sized animals with no phytoplankton?
| Seems like thermal vents would provide a lot less energy than
| the Sun, but I'm really out of my depth.
| lisper wrote:
| > Could you have leviathan sized animals with no
| phytoplankton?
|
| Yes. See e.g.:
|
| https://www.biointeractive.org/classroom-resources/how-
| giant...
|
| These aren't "leviathan-sized" but they could easily provide
| food for something that big. The base of this food chain
| would be chemosynthetic bacteria. After that, energy is not
| the limiting factor on size.
| sigg3 wrote:
| Well technically they would just be Europeans.
| seventytwo wrote:
| _Technically_ , they'd be Europans. ;p
| ekaryotic wrote:
| Are you sure, I think they would be called Europaeans.
| v4dok wrote:
| To solve your dillema as a Greek. Both the continent and
| the planet have the same name. Europeans it is.
| [deleted]
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Europa Report (movie):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avzqYgtpdMQ I enjoyed it ^^
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Great film with the suspense and tension of Aliens.
| wishfish wrote:
| Don't forget about Enceladus. Also a massive ocean with the
| added benefit of shooting enormous geysers into space. Would be
| wonderful if our solar system had at least 3 worlds with ocean
| life.
|
| https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/saturn-moons/enceladus
| xwdv wrote:
| Wondering if we could eat fish born on Europa and if there
| would be any ill effects.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| From an Arthur C. Clarke novel:
|
| > ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS - EXCEPT EUROPA.
|
| > ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.
|
| So yes. Clarke thought it was special also.
| XorNot wrote:
| It's also one of my favorite sequences in the 2010 movie of
| Space Odessey series (which IMO, works a lot better as an
| actual movie pacing wise). Just something about the tension
| gets captured really well there, without their being any sort
| of actual threat (since it's a robotic probe).
| slg wrote:
| This is obviously a ginormous leap from this announcement and
| just a tangent sparked by it. The possibility of intelligent life
| developing on a world like Europa encrusted with what is
| effectively a miles think solid atmosphere has always been one of
| my favorite feasible sci-fi hypotheticals. Could you imagine how
| that would impact their culture? Would they even know there is
| anything on the other side of the ice? Them finding out about us
| would be even more world shattering them us finding out about
| them.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Apparently the ring builders in The Expanse books were
| supposedly squids from an ice encrusted planet/moon.
|
| It is an odd idea of how they'd even discover it. Assuming
| their natural habitat is a thermal vent on the ocean floor,
| they'd need pressure suits or probes to travel up to shell.
| Then they'd need to essentially create a Kola Superdeep
| Borehole in the sky, and there's no obvious reason to do that,
| especially since drilling down into rock would be easier, and
| certainly more lucrative. (ie there aren't any valuable
| materials in ice). This is assuming they don't discover a 15 km
| deep fissure, which seems unlikely because I don't think
| individual fissures discovered are that deep, all fissures are
| transitory, and probably randomly distributed. Sure a seismic
| network in the sky would could find evidence of fissures, but
| why are you building a seismic network in the sky?
| sbierwagen wrote:
| It would be hard to tell if the rest of the universe even
| existed. No electromagnetic radiation or cosmic rays are
| going to make it through the ice. They'd have to get all the
| way to neutrino telescopes or gravity wave detectors to sense
| anything outside their ocean, and why would they spend the
| resources? Humanity could _see_ our moon and it still took us
| thousands of years to get there.
|
| Really they'd only do it if they managed indefinite
| population growth without poisoning their biosphere with
| waste products, and had to mine out the ice shell just for
| more living space. That would be tough: the equivalent would
| be if every square meter of the Earth's surface, including
| oceans, was as densely populated as Manhattan. That gets us
| up to 14 trillion people. Now make every building 10 km tall.
| jl6 wrote:
| The relevant sci-fi is the planet of Krikkit from the 3rd
| Hitch-Hikers book, _Life, the Universe, and Everything_. On
| that world, life evolved under a permanent blanket of cloud. At
| no point did they ever see the stars, or think that there might
| be something of interest above them. Until one day they sent up
| a rocket which penetrated the dust cloud, and for the first
| time they became aware of the rest of the universe.
|
| Their response? "It'll have to go."
| finite_depth wrote:
| [dead]
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Have you seen the movie Europa Report ^^ ?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| adolph wrote:
| I don't want to spoil anything but intelligent life that
| evolves under high pressure depth is explored in Project Hail
| Mary by Any Weir (author of recent popular culture book then
| movie The Martian).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Project-Hail-Mary-Andy-Weir/dp/059313...
| abracadaniel wrote:
| For comparison, the furthest we've dug down is about 8 miles,
| and Europa's ice crust is estimated to be 10-15 miles. So, yeah
| that would be like us getting discovered by mole people from
| nearly twice the depth we're capable of reaching. It's fun to
| think about what a civilization on Europa would think about
| their world. You can go up, but it gets colder and the pressure
| gets lower. It'd be like trying to go to space, but you have to
| dig to get there. Perhaps the change in density would make any
| such upward drilling unstable and beyond their means.
| sgt wrote:
| No need to dig, you just melt yourself downwards. It's not
| exactly like digging through rocks on Earth.
| superhumanuser wrote:
| Would liquid pool up as you melt the ice? I guess you'd
| need to pump it out. Is that even possible at that depth?
| The liquid might boil on the way up.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Your craft is denser than the liquid, so you just kinda
| drop through it and keep melting.
| evrimoztamur wrote:
| Doesn't the heat you have to produce increase as you go
| deeper?
| abracadaniel wrote:
| In this case, the digging is from the perspective of a
| Europan living under the ice, and having to dig to go up.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Of course, barring collapse, the rocks won't reform right
| above you as you go.
| sgt wrote:
| I wonder if one can apply some heat to the cable or wire
| dropping you down, and thus create a more open conduit.
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| What's the pressure like at that depth? That seems like it
| would have some implications to be dealt with
| hermitcrab wrote:
| IIRC the pressure at the bottom of Europa's theorized ocean
| in similar to at the bottom of earth's ocean. The greater
| depth is compensated by the lower graviation field.
| yegle wrote:
| Oh this reminds me of Cixin Liu's (of the Three Body Problem
| fame) short scifi Mountain.
|
| It describes an alien species that lives in the mantle of a
| planet. Their explorer finally dug through to the crust, when
| they were met with never before seen liquid water that
| instantly kills them as well as their (non water proof)
| equipments.
|
| Fascinating short story.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| An aside, but hovering over the image only to have it obscured...
| and then _smaller_ on click, is a little comical.
| whoisthemachine wrote:
| And then if you click on "Expand" (after clicking on the click
| which makes it smaller), it is restored to its original size.
| spookie wrote:
| We might have discovered carbon below 10km of ice on another
| celestial body, but we still cannot make sense of magic
| smoke.
| [deleted]
| wsinks wrote:
| I'm glad you posted this - I went back just to see this and
| gave an audible laugh. More than a little comical!
| steve1977 wrote:
| "All these worlds are yours - except Europa.
|
| Attempt no landing there."
|
| You have been warned guys... ;)
| [deleted]
| CuteDinosaur wrote:
| What is this quote from?
| ikesau wrote:
| 2010: Odyssey Two, Arthur C. Clarke's sequel to 2001: A Space
| Odyssey
| CuteDinosaur wrote:
| Seems pretty. Will read soon.
| twoodfin wrote:
| The film version is flawed but still well-worth anyone's
| time who got this deep in the thread & enjoys hard, near-
| future sci-fi.
|
| My theory is that _2010: The Year We Make Contact_ is a
| lot like _Blade Runner_ , pre- the various Ridley Scott
| re-cuts.
|
| Drop the voiceover, tweak the ending to be less literal /
| sentimental, fix some of the FX matting, and you'd be
| left with one of the best serious SF films since _2001_.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| spazx wrote:
| Use them together. Use them in peace.
| tunnuz wrote:
| Came for this, was not disappointed.
| sph wrote:
| Honestly, the only thing I wish to see before I die is a
| submarine mission to Europa or Ganymede. It would be even more
| mind blowing and an amazing achievement for humanity, and the
| search for extraterrestrial life.
|
| That, and the dragonfly-helicopter-thing on Titan. Have you
| ever seen the Sun set on a methane lake?
|
| It's time for a rewatch of Europa Report (2013).
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'm ready for beach front property when Jupiter finally
| becomes the Sun's companion star to warm up Europa
| dotnet00 wrote:
| It's such a shame that the lander component of Europa Clipper
| got cancelled.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| It did?! :(.
|
| Shame. We should be scrambling to land probes there
| yesterday.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Yep, yet another casualty of Congress's obsession with
| wasting money on SLS. Spending another $10B on an SLS
| upgrade that is still too rough of a ride for any payload
| is fine, but spending $1B on a lander is too much.
|
| With Europa Clipper there was also the incident that
| Congress tried to write into law that it had to launch on
| SLS. The Clipper team were leaning towards using Falcon
| Heavy ($90M). In the end Congress only relented because
| the Clipper team said they'd need another $1B in funding
| (in addition to the $2B+ for an SLS launch itself) to
| make the delicate instruments on Clipper capable of
| withstanding the extremely rough ride that SLS offers.
|
| So now Europa Clipper will be a Jupiter orbiter that does
| several flybys of Europa.
| mikeInAlaska wrote:
| A Europa submarine mission is a good bucket list, but don't
| sell us too short.
|
| * Humans on Mars * Room temperature Superconductors and their
| effects on humanity. * Sustained Fusion Power for the masses.
| * General Artificial Intelligence * Human brain-computer
| interface. * Full reversal of climate change. * Extended
| human lifespan. * Curing all forms of cancer. * Universal
| translator for all human languages. * Discovery of
| extraterrestrial intelligent life. * Understanding dark
| energy and dark matter. * A true virtual reality,
| indistinguishable from reality. * 100% renewable energy
| global infrastructure. * Establishing a lunar base. *
| Sentient AI companions. * Discovering the origin of life.
|
| If you elect me, I will make all these come true!
| throw_pm23 wrote:
| About half of these I don't care for, but the submarine
| mission would be cool.
| adzm wrote:
| > Universal translator for all human languages.
|
| We are pretty much already there, though there is room to
| improve, it's an amazing accomplishment though that I think
| we take for granted.
| dmix wrote:
| I would like to see a solar gravitational lens telescope
| built in space to look at distant exoplanets with the
| highest resolution possible.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_gravitational_lens
|
| although last time I brought this up on HN someone
| explained to me it'd be very expensive, need to be huge,
| and it'd likely only point at one planet per lens, and the
| image would still be pretty blurry :(
|
| > 2020, NASA physicist Slava Turyshev presented his idea of
| direct multi-pixel imaging and spectroscopy of an exoplanet
| with a solar gravitational lens mission. The lens could
| reconstruct the exoplanet image with ~25 km-scale surface
| resolution in 6 months of integration time, enough to see
| surface features and signs of habitability. His proposal
| was selected for the Phase III of the NIAC 2020 (NASA
| Institute for Advanced Concepts). Turyshev proposes to use
| realistic-sized solar sails (~16 vanes of 103 m2) to
| achieve the needed high velocity at perihelion (~150
| km/sec), reaching 547 AU in 17 years.
|
| https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase
| _...
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(page generated 2023-09-21 23:00 UTC)