{"id":5808,"date":"2013-05-03T15:37:03","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T15:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/?p=5808"},"modified":"2014-12-02T08:27:02","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T08:27:02","slug":"chemistry-and-biology-review-life-in-oceans-of-europa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/2013\/05\/03\/chemistry-and-biology-review-life-in-oceans-of-europa\/","title":{"rendered":"Chemistry and Biology Review: Life in Oceans of Europa?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overview:\u00a0 Why Europa?<\/strong>
\nEuropa is one of the moons that orbit the planet Jupiter.\u00a0 Recently, scientists studying data from the faraway moon have applied principles of biology and chemistry to suggest that some of the conditions for life may be present in that moon’s oceans.\u00a0 They have studied the chemical exchange between the \u00a0ocean and the surface; the possible concentrations of elements necessary for life; and similar types of life here on Earth.<\/p>\n

Review:\u00a0 How Did Life Begin on Earth?<\/strong>
\nAccording to biologists, certain conditions were necessary for life on Earth to begin.\u00a0 Liquid water was necessary, as a medium for chemicals to bathe in and come together, to regulate temperature, and carry away waste products from chemical reactions.\u00a0 In addition, the elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus were needed.<\/p>\n

Europa’s Ocean Is Not Isolated from the Surface<\/strong>
\nScientists found evidence of a liquid ocean beneath the icy surface of Europa during the 1990s with the flyby Galileo missions.\u00a0 The ocean extends all around the moon underneath layers of hard ice and warmer ice.\u00a0 Until very recently, scientists thought that the icy surface was completely isolated from the liquid ocean.\u00a0 However, large amounts of data suggest that the surface ice and the ocean water mix slowly.\u00a0 Some of the ocean water is pure water, mixed with magnesium sulfate, sodium chloride (plain old table salt) and potassium chloride.\u00a0 The oceans of Europa are very likely a salty place, mixed with magnesium and sulfur from volcanoes erupting on Jupiter.<\/p>\n

Europa’s Ocean May Have Energy Sources<\/strong>
\nIn addition to the variety of chemicals found in the salty ocean of Europa, scientists have speculated about ways that energy might be exchanged.\u00a0 They think that the presence of substances like hydrogen peroxide show that large amounts of energy may be released from the surface.\u00a0 Hydrogen peroxide releases oxygen when it is dissolved into liquid water, and it is created by radiation from Jupiter’s strong magnetic field.<\/p>\n

Bacteria on Earth Live in Icy Sulfur<\/strong>
\nFurther evidence of the possibility of life using sulfur exists here on Earth.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Scientists have discovered bacteria in a frozen lake far north in the Canadian Arctic that form colonies using sulfur as their source of energy.\u00a0 It is very rare on Earth \u00a0to find life forms that live in ice and use sulfur as their main element, since they are usually overshadowed by other forms of life.<\/p>\n

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Overview:\u00a0 Why Europa? Europa is one of the moons that orbit the planet Jupiter.\u00a0 Recently, scientists studying data from the faraway moon have applied principles of biology and chemistry to suggest that some of the conditions for life may be present in that moon’s oceans.\u00a0 They have studied the chemical exchange between the \u00a0ocean and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[265,608,1030,1233],"class_list":["post-5808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biology","category-chemistry","tag-chemical-exchange","tag-europa","tag-life","tag-ocean"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/schooltutoring.com\/scholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}