Monday, September 26, 2016

[U] Europa's "Warm Water": What We've Learned -- At 2 PM EDT -- From NASA's Hubble Team


UPDATED -- 2:20 PM EDT 09.26.2016: Plumes of water and water-vapor, rising perhaps 290,000 feet -- or almost 50 miles -- have been spotted by Hubble, on several occasions in 2014. I'll embed a great updated NASA video -- 2 minutes only -- describing the science behind all of it, immediately below. I will update my now dated graphic, shortly. But the evidence for the warmth of an undulating water ocean -- well below a sienna colored ice exterior shell -- is now nearly conclusive.

Yet again, a most sublime celestial epiphany is fittingly "writ in water" -- the stuff upon which we are all based. It is grin-worthy indeed that verdant life may already reside in Europa's (metaphorical) sloshing motherly womb. Astonishing.



[End, updated portion.]

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In an update to this post, of last week. . . I'll go out on a limb this late Sunday evening/early Monday morning, and guess that Hubble has spied more evidence of warm water -- an ocean of it, in fact -- subsisting below an icy shell, on the Jovian moon, Europa.

In a more fantastical iteration (as I wait for sleep to find me), I might guess (though I've not depicted it, at left) that Hubble has seen a recurrence of the 2012-era Europa surface water geysers -- then likely spouting up to ten times the height of Earth's Mount Everest -- or almost 290,000 feet. It seems some times, that which was "writ in water," cannot be forever restrained, nor even contained.

In any event, we will know it all -- at 2 PM Eastern. Onward, as beneath that deep space long ice-chilled shell, there moves an undulating, warm ocean -- and just possibly, an ocean where verdant life will one day again arise -- and that is truly grin-worthy. . . .

नमस्ते

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