Some astronomers found signs of great plumes of water erupting from the surface of Europa, one of the larger moons of Jupiter — and water could mean life, which has everyone jumping around in excitement. The best bit? They found the evidence buried deep in archived data from a 20-year-old space mission. See, *that's* why you don't just throw away old files — you never know what you'll find!
SHOW NOTES
Syzygy is produced by Chris Stewart and co-hosted by Dr Emily Brunsden from the Department of Physics at the University of York.
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Emily at the University of York: www.york.ac.uk/physics/people/brunsden/
Chris online: kipstewart.com
Some of the things we talk about in this episode:
TESS Mission first images! https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-s-new-planet-hunter-snaps-initial-test-image-swings-by-moon-toward-final-orbit
The Europa Plume paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-018-0450-z
A good article about the pile up: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/twenty-years-ago-the-galileo-spacecraft-flew-through-a-plume-on-europa/
The Galileo Mission: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/galileo/overview/
Jupiter’s moons: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/overview/
The Cassini mission: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov
Cassini’s awesome photo album: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/galleries/hall-of-fame/
Saturn’s moon Enceladus: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/space/solarsystem/moons/enceladus_(moon)
Water plumes on Enceladus: https://theconversation.com/icy-plumes-bursting-from-saturns-moon-enceladus-suggest-it-could-harbour-life-38673
Hubble images of plumes on Europa: https://gizmodo.com/hubble-discovers-new-evidence-of-geyser-activity-on-eur-1787081944
ESA’s JUICE mission: http://sci.esa.int/juice/
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/
Extremophiles on Earth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile