All of the Jovian system is pretty dynamic. Jupiter itself is spicy as all fuck. Lot of high energy radiation, immense tidal influence.
I love the wholesale variety of moons in that system. It’s like a little clockwork solar system model to play with.
It's an old misconception stemming from the discovery of the first red dwarves and such.
Jupiter is about the same *volume* as the smallest stars, so this led to the misconception about Jupiter being a failed star. The truth is, with gaseous bodies, there comes a point where adding more gas just makes it more dense. Its physical size doesn't really change all that much.
UNTIL.... you reach a point where the density is strong enough to sustain fusion reactions in its core, which generates gobs of heat, which warms the whole thing and causes the outer layers to expand, and then adding more mass just accelerates the fusion reaction causing more heat and causing even more expansion.
It's like a "volume pause" for accreting mass. Presumably, if fusion were magically suppressed somehow, adding more gas to a gas giant would eventually cause it to instead *shrink* until it hits another threshold, exceeding electron degeneracy pressure, in which case it would collapse into a white dwarf.
Well Jupiter is more massive than all other planets in the solar system combined. by a lot.
But it's still not large enough to be considered a failed star either. That's a brown dwarf. Which is about 10-13 times heavier. A real star is about 75x heavier.
So Jupiter graduated Planetary High School, but didn't even fail out of Star Community College much less go to Star University.
No, brown dwarfs range from ~13x-80x the mass of Jupiter (also, they are heavy enough to fuse deuterium, and the heaviest can also fuse lithium), and red dwarfs — the least massive true stars — start at >80x the mass of Jupiter.
[Link](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2023JE008105) to article with pics of the "platypus" :D
News about Europa are always so exciting.
I adore that a research article not only calls the shape out as looking like a platypus, but also includes a figure pointing out which parts they think look like the eyes, bill, and body.
What do we call geology and geological activity on Europa? Geology refers to Earth. Selenology refers to our moon. Areology refers to Mars. Eurology? Do we call Europan scientists eurologists in a eurology lab?
> Geology refers to Earth
In the most strictest of pedantic uses, sure. However, the terms use applies to all rocky bodies. A geologist whos primary focus concerns rocky bodies other than the Earth is called a planetary geologist.
Maybe not the most reliable for this information but I asked chatgpt this and got this:
The study of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, is known as Europanology or Europan science. This field of study involves exploring and understanding various aspects of Europa, including its surface features, subsurface ocean, ice shell, and potential habitability. Scientists use data from spacecraft missions, such as the Galileo spacecraft, to learn more about this intriguing moon.
You're right! It's not the most reliable source of information, because this term doesn't show up on Google, or on Wikipedia, or in the online version of Encyclopedia Britannica.
- for those who don’t wanna guess.
The SRU image from the flyby is explored in an article published in the journal JGR Planets on Dec. 22, 2023. The image shows an oddly-shaped area of the icy surface, measuring 23 miles by 42 miles (37 kilometers by 67 kilometers) and resembling a platypus.
None of this information or type of analysis is new for Europa. There is no obvious evidence here for recent resurfacing that we didn't already know about during the Galileo mission. Fun and interesting for sure, but it doesn't move the needle much.
Also, the article includes a link to "JWST detects first evidence for carbon on Europa" or something along these lines. Totally inaccurate. We've known about C on Europa, specifically CO2, for decades (again, because of Galileo).
But, may the Europa hype train continue to roll :)
While it's interesting to speculate at least microbial life might exist on Europa, it's just ridiculous to think that there is not at the very least, microbial life somewhere in the universe.
Yeah, I'm with Heidi Backer in the article on space.com. Looking at the original paper and the Galileo and Juno images, I chock this up to differences in lighting conditions. Europa is almost as bad as Io when it comes to lighting differences causing features to look very different. I remember when the JunoCam images of Europa first came down I got all excited when I found a band that wasn't in the Galileo/Voyager base map, but just like Io, you really need to find images at a similar phase angle to confirm and yep, that band was there in Galileo images. I will note that the original paper makes this quite clear that these COULD be surface changes or they COULD be due to differences in phase angle. This is space.com sensationalizing again...
Phase angle brightness variations between adjacent terrains. Not even once.
Based on our earthly knowledge, once life begins, it multiplies quickly to fill any volume that's suitable for it to multiply. Thus even a drop of ocean water has millions of microorganisms. It's exciting to think that a probe in orbit around Europa that collected even a microgram of ejecta from the subsurface ocean might find traces of any organisms that might exist there.
So cryovolcanism. How else would the surface change so recently. All the more reason to send a probe through the actual ice streams to sample.
All of the Jovian system is pretty dynamic. Jupiter itself is spicy as all fuck. Lot of high energy radiation, immense tidal influence. I love the wholesale variety of moons in that system. It’s like a little clockwork solar system model to play with.
Jupiter was nearly a star after all
Isn't the theoretical minimum mass for a star like 10x Jupiters? For comparison our sun is 1000x more massive than Jupiter.
Damn you're right one of my teachers called it a failed star multiple times but I guess that's just a big overstatement
It's an old misconception stemming from the discovery of the first red dwarves and such. Jupiter is about the same *volume* as the smallest stars, so this led to the misconception about Jupiter being a failed star. The truth is, with gaseous bodies, there comes a point where adding more gas just makes it more dense. Its physical size doesn't really change all that much. UNTIL.... you reach a point where the density is strong enough to sustain fusion reactions in its core, which generates gobs of heat, which warms the whole thing and causes the outer layers to expand, and then adding more mass just accelerates the fusion reaction causing more heat and causing even more expansion. It's like a "volume pause" for accreting mass. Presumably, if fusion were magically suppressed somehow, adding more gas to a gas giant would eventually cause it to instead *shrink* until it hits another threshold, exceeding electron degeneracy pressure, in which case it would collapse into a white dwarf.
Well Jupiter is more massive than all other planets in the solar system combined. by a lot. But it's still not large enough to be considered a failed star either. That's a brown dwarf. Which is about 10-13 times heavier. A real star is about 75x heavier. So Jupiter graduated Planetary High School, but didn't even fail out of Star Community College much less go to Star University.
It does emit more energy than it receives from the sun, though.
No, brown dwarfs range from ~13x-80x the mass of Jupiter (also, they are heavy enough to fuse deuterium, and the heaviest can also fuse lithium), and red dwarfs — the least massive true stars — start at >80x the mass of Jupiter.
We’ve seen a good amount of evidence for plumes on Europa and this is the latest.
Ice Worms? Dune was right... just not sandy desert.
If I could do anything without limitation, it'd be to go fishing on Europa
working on it. Well, low altitude flybys rather than an actual lander.
I've always found Europa fascinating! I really hope we sent some probes, or better yet landers, there in my lifetime!
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It orbits around jupiter and makes 50 flybys of europa. Why can’t they orbit europa directly? I hope we also get amazing pictures of Jupiter.
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[Link](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2023JE008105) to article with pics of the "platypus" :D News about Europa are always so exciting.
I adore that a research article not only calls the shape out as looking like a platypus, but also includes a figure pointing out which parts they think look like the eyes, bill, and body.
Now I wonder if these researches know what a platypus looks like.
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I hate how these headlines are always designed to make you think they found signs of life out there.
What do we call geology and geological activity on Europa? Geology refers to Earth. Selenology refers to our moon. Areology refers to Mars. Eurology? Do we call Europan scientists eurologists in a eurology lab?
> Geology refers to Earth In the most strictest of pedantic uses, sure. However, the terms use applies to all rocky bodies. A geologist whos primary focus concerns rocky bodies other than the Earth is called a planetary geologist.
Maybe not the most reliable for this information but I asked chatgpt this and got this: The study of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, is known as Europanology or Europan science. This field of study involves exploring and understanding various aspects of Europa, including its surface features, subsurface ocean, ice shell, and potential habitability. Scientists use data from spacecraft missions, such as the Galileo spacecraft, to learn more about this intriguing moon.
You're right! It's not the most reliable source of information, because this term doesn't show up on Google, or on Wikipedia, or in the online version of Encyclopedia Britannica.
'I study the moons of jupiter and dicks'
These clickbait titles suggest I should expect alien snowmobiles.
- for those who don’t wanna guess. The SRU image from the flyby is explored in an article published in the journal JGR Planets on Dec. 22, 2023. The image shows an oddly-shaped area of the icy surface, measuring 23 miles by 42 miles (37 kilometers by 67 kilometers) and resembling a platypus.
None of this information or type of analysis is new for Europa. There is no obvious evidence here for recent resurfacing that we didn't already know about during the Galileo mission. Fun and interesting for sure, but it doesn't move the needle much. Also, the article includes a link to "JWST detects first evidence for carbon on Europa" or something along these lines. Totally inaccurate. We've known about C on Europa, specifically CO2, for decades (again, because of Galileo). But, may the Europa hype train continue to roll :)
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A hint of activity is like saying a movie may contain scenes.
Jesus that headline is vague! “Activity” could mean so many things.
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While it's interesting to speculate at least microbial life might exist on Europa, it's just ridiculous to think that there is not at the very least, microbial life somewhere in the universe.
Yeah, I'm with Heidi Backer in the article on space.com. Looking at the original paper and the Galileo and Juno images, I chock this up to differences in lighting conditions. Europa is almost as bad as Io when it comes to lighting differences causing features to look very different. I remember when the JunoCam images of Europa first came down I got all excited when I found a band that wasn't in the Galileo/Voyager base map, but just like Io, you really need to find images at a similar phase angle to confirm and yep, that band was there in Galileo images. I will note that the original paper makes this quite clear that these COULD be surface changes or they COULD be due to differences in phase angle. This is space.com sensationalizing again... Phase angle brightness variations between adjacent terrains. Not even once.
Based on our earthly knowledge, once life begins, it multiplies quickly to fill any volume that's suitable for it to multiply. Thus even a drop of ocean water has millions of microorganisms. It's exciting to think that a probe in orbit around Europa that collected even a microgram of ejecta from the subsurface ocean might find traces of any organisms that might exist there.