Moons of Jupiter

C12-0053. Titan, one of the moons of Jupiter, appears to have oceans composed of liquid methane. Describe how this liquid differs from liquid water, and predict whether methane-based life forms are likely. 

Europa, a moon of Jupiter with a diameter of 3210 km, has received considerable attention because of evidence that its icy crust hides a global ocean. Infrared spectra indicate abundant... 

T If a camera on a satellite that circumnavigates the moons of Jupiter takes better pictures at a lesser cost than a manned space vehicle, why should a photographer go ... 

Fig. 1. A schematic diagram of the orbital positions of the moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo. Their positions are scaled to Jupiter s radius (Rj) with properties given in Table 1. Note these satellites, like our moon, are all phase locked to the parent planet, hence the same side faces Jupiter throughout each moon s orbit. Since the magnetic field is attached to Jupiter, it rotates faster, therefore, in addition to ions and electrons moving up and down the field lines and impacting the satellites, there is a net preferential flow onto the hemisphere trailing the satellite s motion.

There is recent spectral data on the icy moons of Jupiter that is not yet understood and the spectral data base wUl continue to increase with new data... 

Emperors. But it was the qualitative telescopic discoveries of Galileo (1564-1642) that gave the Copernican system a widespread plausibility, the observation around 1610 of mountains and apparently seas on the moon, of spots on the sun, the phases of Venus, and the four moons of Jupiter. Copernicanism then became a doctrine banned by the Roman Church (1616) until corrected, and Galileo was condemned for his support of the doctrine in 1633. 

In the upper atmosphere today, a small amount of O2 is produced through photolysis of water vapor. This process is the sole source of O2 to the atmospheres on the icy moons of Jupiter (Ganymede and Europa), where trace concentrations of O2 have been detected (Vidal et ai, 1997). Water vapor photolysis may also have been the source of O2 to the early Earth before the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis. However, the oxygen formed by photolysis would have been through reactions with methane and carbon monoxide, preventing any accumulation in the atmosphere (Kasting et al., 2001). 

Although the basic chemical and material building blocks for the planets and their satellites were fairly uniform during the initial formation of the solar nebula from inter-stellar cloud materials, chemical differentiation, and segregation occurred over time during accretion of the planets, and their moons such that the volatile chemical components of the solar nebula ended up as present day near-surface ice on Earth, and ice plus solid CO2 on Mars, and as ice and other molecular solids and fluids (such as hydrocarbons and ammonia) on most of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and as water ices and increasingly volatile species such as nitrogen in the outermost solar system. 

Q.13.2 In 1997, great excitement surrounded the presumed existence of water on one of the moons of Jupiter. This moon was thought to have enough heat generated from its volcanic activity that water would be melted underneath a mantle of ice. What is the likely heat capacity, dielectric constant, and heats of formation and vaporization for this Jovian water when compared to terrestrial water ... 

Modern astronomy was bom with the invention of the telescope in Holland in 1608 and its immediate use and improvement in Italy by Galileo Galilei, who used it to discover the moons of Jupiter and the spots on the sun. 

On Callisto, a cold, icy moon of Jupiter, lives a race of intelligent worms called infinity worms. The number of years they are permitted to live is based on mathematical formulas that they are free to select early in their lives. (The government uses this approach to prevent overpopulation.)... 

Resonances of special interest in the solar system include the lock between Neptune and Pluto (Xp — 2A.n — cop = 180°), the Trojan asteroids, which are ttapped at the triangular Lagrangian point of the Jovian orbit, and the moons of Jupiter. These last are perhaps the most accessible examples, because they can be readily observed by anyone with the patience to watch the moons for a few days with binoculars. The best is the coupling of Europa and Ganymede, Xe — 2Xq + coe = 0, but the three moons, including lo, display Aj - 3Ae -I- 2Ag = 180°. 

If a habitable zone is restricted to the presence of liquid water, then we must also include the interiors of giant planets and the ice covered Galilean Moons of Jupiter, or the icy satellites of Saturn and maybe even other places. Therefore, the search for life must not be restricted to the study of circumstellar habitable zones. But it seems that life requires much more than just liquid water. 

Project Prometheus was established in 2003 and included the goal of developing the first reactor-powered spaceship and demonstrating that it can be operated safely and reliably on long duration, deep-space missions for civilian space exploration. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) had overall lead for the project The initial application of space fission power being evaluated was the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO), a nuclear electric propulsion spacecraft intended to perform deep-space scientific research around three moons of Jupiter (Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa)... 

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