Logarithmic Astronomy What a photo! If you looked to the skies last night (January 21st), you may have noticed a bright point of light nearly on top of the Moon. That was Jupiter! Last night was the closest they will come (an event called “conjunction”) until 2026. Their nearly intersecting “paths” through the sky are only due to our Earthly perspective, of course. Many things in the night sky will appear next to each other if we just wait long enough. What’s especially cool about this photograph is that it captures three levels of astronomical complexity in one image. First we have our terrestrial satellite, Luna, with the “terminator” line of day/night stretched across a large, dark volcanic plain known as the “Ocean of Storms”, which is an awesome name for a volcanic plain. The next brightest image is Jupiter, our solar system’s largest planet/failed star. And those dots around Jupiter? Those are three of its Galilean moons! The photographer’s Facebook page says there’s four moons of Jupiter in this shot, but I only see three. If we are seeing them in their increasing distance from Jupiter (and that’s a big if, since perspective can play tricks on us), they are probably Io, Europa, and Ganymede. It’s like peeling back the layers of an astronomical onion, in a single photo. Great work by Chris Levitan, check out his Facebook page.
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Logarithmic Astronomy

What a photo! If you looked to the skies last night (January 21st), you may have noticed a bright point of light nearly on top of the Moon. That was Jupiter! Last night was the closest they will come (an event called “conjunction”) until 2026.

Their nearly intersecting “paths” through the sky are only due to our Earthly perspective, of course. Many things in the night sky will appear next to each other if we just wait long enough. What’s especially cool about this photograph is that it captures three levels of astronomical complexity in one image.

First we have our terrestrial satellite, Luna, with the “terminator” line of day/night stretched across a large, dark volcanic plain known as the “Ocean of Storms”, which is an awesome name for a volcanic plain. The next brightest image is Jupiter, our solar system’s largest planet/failed star. And those dots around Jupiter? Those are three of its Galilean moons! The photographer’s Facebook page says there’s four moons of Jupiter in this shot, but I only see three. If we are seeing them in their increasing distance from Jupiter (and that’s a big if, since perspective can play tricks on us), they are probably Io, Europa, and Ganymede.

It’s like peeling back the layers of an astronomical onion, in a single photo. Great work by Chris Levitan, check out his Facebook page.

On Jupiter’s Moon Europa: Oceans, Lakes - and Even Life? More on the latest studies of Europa’s vast lakes of subterranean, icy water, and how new research at my university (UT-Austin) tells us that some of them might be within reach of surface exploration. From Time: For a scientific paper, the study just published online by Nature starts out more like a bit of poetry — or maybe it’s more like a romance novel. “Europa,” it begins, “the innermost icy satellite of Jupiter, has a tortured, young surface.” That just about sums it up, though. Europa was discovered by Galileo almost exactly 400 years, ago, when he first pointed his primitive telescope at the night sky. But it wasn’t until the Galileo space probe arrived in the 1990s for close-up surveillance that astronomers began to understand its true nature — a rocky core surrounded by a world-spanning ocean scores of miles deep, and topped with a thick coating of cracked, gnarled ice. That being the case, and liquid water being considered an essential element for life, scientists quickly realized that Europa could harbor its own, homegrown biology — in principle, anyway. (via TIME, image via UT Austin/Dead Pixel FX)
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On Jupiter’s Moon Europa: Oceans, Lakes - and Even Life?

More on the latest studies of Europa’s vast lakes of subterranean, icy water, and how new research at my university (UT-Austin) tells us that some of them might be within reach of surface exploration. From Time:

For a scientific paper, the study just published online by Nature starts out more like a bit of poetry — or maybe it’s more like a romance novel. “Europa,” it begins, “the innermost icy satellite of Jupiter, has a tortured, young surface.” That just about sums it up, though. Europa was discovered by Galileo almost exactly 400 years, ago, when he first pointed his primitive telescope at the night sky. But it wasn’t until the Galileo space probe arrived in the 1990s for close-up surveillance that astronomers began to understand its true nature — a rocky core surrounded by a world-spanning ocean scores of miles deep, and topped with a thick coating of cracked, gnarled ice.

That being the case, and liquid water being considered an essential element for life, scientists quickly realized that Europa could harbor its own, homegrown biology — in principle, anyway.

(via TIME, image via UT Austin/Dead Pixel FX)

Source: TIME

New Look at Europa Points to Huge Under-Ice Lakes of Liquid Water Europa, a moon orbiting Jupiter, has long been known to have plenty of water. It’s covered with a massive ocean of water, it just lies beneath 20 km of ice. A new analysis of erupting volcanoes points to areas where water could pool as close as 3 km to the surface, making it even more likely to harbor some form of life! So how would we get there? Stop what you are doing and let adventurer Bill Stone tell you about his plans to send robotic submarine probes to Europa to drill through the ice and collect life. Uh-maz-ing. (via ScienceNOW)
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New Look at Europa Points to Huge Under-Ice Lakes of Liquid Water

Europa, a moon orbiting Jupiter, has long been known to have plenty of water. It’s covered with a massive ocean of water, it just lies beneath 20 km of ice.

A new analysis of erupting volcanoes points to areas where water could pool as close as 3 km to the surface, making it even more likely to harbor some form of life!

So how would we get there? Stop what you are doing and let adventurer Bill Stone tell you about his plans to send robotic submarine probes to Europa to drill through the ice and collect life. Uh-maz-ing.

(via ScienceNOW)

Source: news.sciencemag.org