Exploring Europa - Ocean Worlds of the Outer Solar System

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Channel: NASA

Views: 78,660

Rating: 4.7666278 out of 5

Keywords: NASA, Europa, JPL

Id: 2k-N3CD31H8

Length: 83min 35sec (5015 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 20 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Lecture starts at 2:20. I couldn't find a higher res version elsewhere, but this is pretty good for a 240p video. Clever compression.

[u/hausi22]

Very interesting talk!

Here are a few links about the proposed spacecraft:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Clipper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Explorer

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/europa/home.cfm

[u/RabidRaccoon]

You definitely get the impression that if you sent a probe to Europa that could get to the ocean you've got decent odds of finding shrimp like organisms.

Of course what would be really interesting would be to find out if they've got DNA with the same coding pattern as DNA on Earth. If not it would tell that life developed independently there and hence is very common in the universe. If they've got the same DNA and protein scheme we've got the odds are that life got passed around on meteorites. Still the nice thing about Europa is that whilst it's fairly easy for life to spread from Mars to Earth or vice versa by ballistic panspermia. Europa's icy shell means the ocean is to some extent isolated.

Proof that life developed twice, independently in our solar system would imply that it is very common in the universe.