Naked Science Forum

Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Pseudoscience-is-malarkey on 14/10/2022 09:10:35

Title: Does Jupiter's radiation make life on it's moons impossible?
Post by: Pseudoscience-is-malarkey on 14/10/2022 09:10:35
I know "impossible" has evolved into an adjective that spacers hate to apply to their work. But can we say with some certainty that such radiation levels prevent any kind of matter in its vicinity from acquiring biological properties?
Title: Re: Does Jupiter's radiation make life on it's moons impossible?
Post by: evan_au on 14/10/2022 11:05:36
The ice moon of Europa has a deep ocean overlaid by a thick layer of ice.
- If tidal squeezing heats the inner core, there could be life around hydrothermal vents.
Title: Re: Does Jupiter's radiation make life on it's moons impossible?
Post by: chiralSPO on 14/10/2022 14:18:05
Just to add on to evan_au's response:

Radiation at the "surface" of Europa, is likely quite inhospitable to anything we would recognize as life (which is at least in part due to the significant radiation from the interaction of solar wind (or other charged particles) and Jupiter's magnetic field).

But the interface of the solid ice and tenuous gaseous atmosphere isn't the only "surface" available. Europa appears to have an icy crust that is on the order of a dozen km thick (if I recall correctly), and then several hundred km of liquid, salty water on top of a rocky core. It is this liquid-rock interface that many people believe is potentially suitable for life.

There is ample evidence that Europa is a geologically active world, and that it has active hydrothermal vents that are likely to be quite similar to those found on Earth in terms of composition. We have more direct evidence of this from Saturn's similar moon, Enceladus, which frequently has visible geysers (the ejecta of which make up Saturn's E ring). We have even directly sampled the geysers and analyzed them by mass spec to see that it has a tantalizing mix of small organic compounds (containing C, H, N, and O 10.1093/mnras/stz2280 ), salts (Na+, K+, Cl–, OH–. HCO3–, CO32–, NH4+--it appears to have a pH of 11 or 12 10.1016/j.gca.2015.04.017), and even possible energy-containing ("food") molecules (H2, CO, H2S, NH3, CH4, CH2O 10.1038/nature08153).
Title: Re: Does Jupiter's radiation make life on it's moons impossible?
Post by: Pseudoscience-is-malarkey on 14/10/2022 22:41:51
Quote from: evan_au on 14/10/2022 11:05:36
The ice moon of Europa has a deep ocean overlaid by a thick layer of ice.
- If tidal squeezing heats the inner core, there could be life around hydrothermal vents.
As a historian/archivist I probably have no business venturing into this topic, but it seems to me that every time space agencies send probes into other planets and moons expecting to find water, they come out disappointed.
Title: Re: Does Jupiter's radiation make life on it's moons impossible?
Post by: Bored chemist on 15/10/2022 00:45:57
Quote from: Pseudoscience-is-malarkey on 14/10/2022 22:41:51
As a historian/archivist I probably have no business venturing into this topic,
It shows.