In 5AM STORYTALK’s latest podcast, Kevin Peter Hand – director of the NASA JPL’s Ocean Worlds Lab and real-life adventurer – discusses the search for life in our outer solar system, the intersection of art and science, and why he's optimistic about our future (no, really).
#NASA #JPL #OceanWorlds #Europa #extraterrestriallife #exploration #podcastepisode #podcast #arttalk #art #writingcommunity
https://colehaddon.substack.com/p/podcast-q-and-a-kevin-peter-hand
NASA Ocean World Explorers Have to Swim Before They Can Fly https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/planets/jupiter/jupiter-moons/europa/nasa-ocean-world-explorers-have-to-swim-before-they-can-fly/ #NASA #Europa #JetPropulsionLaboratory #NASAInnovativeAdvancedConceptsNIACProgram #OceanWorlds #Robotics #SpaceTechnologyMissionDirectorate #Technology
Weird oxygen production from metal nodules at the bottom of the ocean.
Link to summary article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02393-7#:~:text=The%20phenomenon%20was%20discovered%20in,published%20in%20Nature%20Geoscience1.
The authors found oxygen getting produced at the bottom of the ocean. They thought it was from instrument or experimental hiccups...but no, it's real.
So what's going on? And what are the implications for #astrobiology in the deep oceans of the #OceanWorlds ?
[Thread]
One of the big questions about the histories of #Pluto and #Triton is if they once had and potentially could now have internal liquid water oceans. The discovery of such #oceanworlds in our solar system have opened up a new field of #astrobiology.
As part of our Network for #OceanWorlds retreat, we had a lab day where we collected samples off the dock and used the laboratory facilities of the Wrigley Marine Science center.
(Stay tuned, in this thread there will be an important implication for #astrobiology)
Thread on marine lab day.
Here we are lowering a plankton collection net into the water near the dock.
Do you want to see some neat images of Europa's surface?
Of course you do.
(Short thread on #OceanWorlds and #Europa)
Here is a neat image taken by the Galileo spacecraft of Europa's surface near 0, 228 W.
You can see ridges all over the landscape. There is a bulge is about 21 km across. The center is kinda-sorta collapsed, and dark stuff has oozed out or filled in the dark patch lower part of the image. the ridges at center of dome got rotated maybe.
But let's zoom in closer....
[1/5]
Cryobot workshop!
First, a big Thank You to everyone who participated in that quick Mastodon poll last evening. That was extremely useful feedback.
This was a small workshop f about 30-40 people. Mostly engineers/technologists. I was one of the few science types.
Big focus on any deep drill mission onto the #OceanWorlds will focus on #Astrobiology.
So where should we go?
Each world has pros and cons (technical challengs)
Lets give a quick run through:
