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Dazzling New View of Europa’s Frozen Red Veins
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| NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute |
Now, in a newly released view of Europa’s cracked surface, ruddy veins of hydrated salts mixed with chemicals such as magnesium sulfate or sulfuric acid break up bluish slabs of pure water ice. Compiled from data collected by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, this image release only amplifies our fascination for the moon.
The colorized version of this observation, which measures 101×103 miles (163×167 kilometers), uses data that was collected in 1997 and 1998 during separate Galileo flybys. The spacecraft ended its mission in 2003 after NASA commanded it to crash into Jupiter’s atmosphere. This kamikaze ending was chosen as the spacecraft ran out of thruster fuel to avoid it crashing with Europa or the other Jovian satellites, potentially contaminating them with hardy Earth bacteria that may have been hiding in the probe’s components.
This view was originally released as a greyscale map after the first 1997 flyby, but after layering lower-resolution color data collected in 1998, a whole new dimension has been revealed. It is thought that the red veins reveal interactions from Europa’s surface ice with the ocean below.
Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could land a robotic mission near one of these veins, potentially finding an open fissure where a robotic Europa submersible could be dropped to seek out the lifeforms that may lie beneath.
Source: http://www.ascensionearth2012.org/2014/07/dazzling-new-view-of-europas-frozen-red.html
Thermo vents under the Ice fuel the growth of Algae which are photosynthetic organisms that occur in most habitats. They vary from small, single-celled forms to complex multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length.. The US Algal Collection is represented by almost 300,000 accessioned and inventoried herbarium specimens. Using Electron microscopic imaging to view the Europa Red strands it becomes clear life is abundant under the surface of the planet. Comets would have seeded Europa just as they did Earth in the early days of the Solar Systems creation. NASA can not let you know there is life on Europa or Titan because it would change the mathematical equation for life in the Universe. If two or three bodies in one Solar System have developed life forms it would look like this for our Galaxy, 3 X 10 squared, it would mean life has risen in almost every Solar System in the Galaxy. NASA would then have to admit we have been visited because Earth is just a Baby in terms of other Solar Systems in our Galaxy, up to 10 billion years younger!!!