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The National Administration of Aeronautics and Space (NASA) of the united States announced yesterday in a press conference that he has evidence that shows emission of water with the direction of the space of Europe, a moon frost of Jupiter.
NASA scientists, led by William Sparks, of the Institute of Science Telescope Spacecraft, captured the emission while observing one end of the moon passing in front of Jupiter.
The original goal of the team of Sparks was to determine if Europe had a thin atmosphere, or a exófera that could block light released by Jupiter.
The specialists explained that the emissions reach a height of about 200 kilometers before returning material to the surface of the moon, which suggests that in its interior has a huge ocean with two times the water of all the Earth.
dr. Julieta Fierro Institute for Astronomy at UNAM, explained that this is possible because Jupiter produces strong tidal gravitational on Europe, which causes it to move in different directions causing it to heat up and its interior is based.
To understand it in a better way, Fierro cited the following example: "If we take the league and we put it in the front, the league feels cold or at room temperature, but if we stretch it and we crunch it many times and we put on our face, we will feel hot because the movement thereafter he handed over power to the league, which caused him to overheat. The same thing happens with Europe".
For dr. Fierro, the surface of Europe is strong evidence of the existence of water in its interior. "If we see Europa’s surface is completely smooth, there are no impact craters. Our Moon, for example, is cacariza, because all the time we fall meteorites. The Earth will also fall, but the volcanism erased the impact craters. This makes you think that Europe should have a process to erase the impact".
What has been thought is that when Europe falls a meteorite, its surface is cracked and water comes out liquid of the fund, is deployed at the surface and covers the impacts.
Another of the evidence is supported by images that they were able to get thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope.
"With ultraviolet radiation is found a sort of geyser of water and water steam of 160 km altitude, with tons of water that flow from the interior of Europe as a feather volcanic," said Fierro.
research. Paul Hertz, director of Astrophysics at NASA, explained that Hubble examines Europe from 2014, but up to now gave to know the evidence because they were subject to large analysis.
Hertz said that "once we ask ourselves whether there might be life beyond Earth. We live in an era in which the instruments allow us to answer that question."
To Jennifer Wiseman, astronaut american, the capabilities of the Hubble in the ultraviolet range were the keys to achieve this discovery, but said that still need to understand the timing, that is to say, when are the broadcasts to know when they could be collected for some samples.
he Also commented that the space mission Juno, which explores Jupiter, could not collect samples because it is not prepared to do so without contaminating the results with subject matter or microbes from the Earth.
"we’re Going to assume that there are the necessary conditions for life in Europe, if we send a mission that is not fully sterilized, could contaminate it with terrestrial life, and that life could thrive there, that would lead to a confusion in their exploration," said Fierro.
The specialist Wiliam Sparks indicated that the possibility that this finding is an error is very low, but even so, the researchers have remained cautious. "It could be that the instruments were reflecting an artifact, a false measurement due to defects of the instruments".
A new mission. The NASA study raises the possibility of launching a mission in 2020, but not to find life, but to analyse the habitability of the moon.
If it is sent in 2020 will depend on the launcher to know how much time it would take. "To make a kilo of matter of the Earth is in need of a thousand kilos of fuel. Then it is necessary for a rocket huge, and it is appropriate to use a path where you use the gravitational attraction of other planets to create an effect boomerang, as it did with Juno, it took seven years to reach Jupiter.
Without a doubt, Europe is postulated as the main target within the Solar System to find life.
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