Earth Science
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Weekend Feature: NASA-ESA Announce Europa Mission -Search for Life on Jupiter's Water Worlds
With input from scientists around the world, American and European scientists working on the potential next new mission to the Jupiter system have announced their joint vision for the Europa Jupiter System Mission to explore "the emergence of habitable worlds around gas giants." The proposed Europa Jupiter System Mission would provide orbiters around two of Jupiter's moons: a NASA orbiter around Europa called the Jupiter Europa Orbiter, and an ESA orbiter around Ganymede called the Jupiter Ganymede Orbiter. "We've reached hands across the Atlantic to define a mission to Jupiter's water worlds," said Bob Pappalardo, the pre-project scientist for the proposed Jupiter Europa Orbiter, who is based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "The Europa Jupiter System Mission will create a leap in scientific knowledge about the moons of Jupiter and their potential to harbor life."
Richard A. Lovett in Seattle, Washington An entire galaxy may be lurking, unseen, just outside our own, scientists announced Thursday. The invisibility of "Galaxy X"—as the purported body has been dubbed—may be due less to its apparent status as a dwarf galaxy than to its murky location and its overwhelming amount of dark matter, astronomer Sukanya Chakrabarti speculates.
Dark-Matter Galaxy Detected: Hidden Dwarf Lurks Nearby?
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38517" title="titan_haze2" src="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2010/10/titan_haze2.jpg" alt="" width="660" height="524" /> When it comes to determining exactly where in the solar system life began, things have never been so up in the air. Scientists over the past decade have suggested deep-sea hydrothermal vents, underground aquifers, partially frozen lakes and even comets as locations for the origin of life. <img class="size-full wp-image-11123 alignright" title="sciencenews" src="http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2009/09/sciencenews.gif" alt="sciencenews" width="200" height="40" /> Now an experiment that simulates chemical reactions in the atmosphere of Titan, Saturn’s haze-shrouded moon, adds a new location to the list of unexpected places where life could have begun — in the sky.
Titan’s Haze Could Hold Recipe for Life, No Water Needed | Wired Science
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