Minggu, 31 Oktober 2021

This ruby is 2.5 billion years old and contains evidence of ancient life - CBC.ca

A University of Waterloo researcher was part of a team that discovered residue that was once ancient life encased in a 2.5 billion-year-old ruby — the first time evidence of life has been found in a gemstone.

Chris Yakymchuk was the main Canadian researcher on a team of international collaborators in the U.K., Australia, and Denmark who were tasked with helping the government of Greenland locate ruby deposits to mine.

While they were successful at locating the gemstones, the team also made a much bigger discovery — a sign of ancient life, in a place no one had ever seen before. 

"We're doing all kinds of different analytical techniques looking at these rubies under the microscope," said Yakymchuk, a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Waterloo. "And we found something a little bit cooler — these little fragments of mineral graphite inside these rubies [made over] 2.5 billion years ago."

Graphite is found in rocks made during a time on the planet when oxygen was not abundant in the atmosphere, and life existed only in microorganisms and algae films, according to the university.

In southern west Greenland, researchers from the University of Waterloo located some rubies that contain ancient signs of life. (Submitted by Chris Yakymchuk)

Yakymchuk says that over time, ancient critters and organisms buried into the earth have turned into today's gas and oil, and those buried deeper in the earth and closer to its core have turned into graphite, which is what the team is now investigating.

Ruby and sapphire fall within the mineral corundum family of gems. Corundum gems have colours ranging from brown, to deep red (ruby), deep blue (sapphire) and purple-pink. Although the purple-pink ones found are not the deep red colour typically associated with ruby, Yakymchuk said some scientists still call them ruby because they are part of the same mineral family.

The ruby has to be pulled out of the rock, polished and faceted before it starts to look like gemstones found in jewlery stores.

Future work into early life forms in gemstones

Their research shows the graphite changed the chemistry of the surrounding rock to create favourable conditions for ruby growth, meaning rubies could not form in this location without the graphite present. 

"They've been around for billions of years — the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, massive meteorite impacts, the coming and going of massive glaciation events on earth, massive volcanoes," said Yakymchuk on the The Morning Edition.

"For me personally, it's quite humbling to think about all the things that are encapsulated in this ruby as a reminder of our small part in the long history of planet Earth."

The Morning Edition - K-W5:40Researchers from UW have discovered signs of ancient life inside a 2.5 billion-year-old ruby

Evidence of ancient life has been found inside a 2.5 billion-year-old ruby by a team led by a University of Waterloo researcher Chris Yakymchuk. He shares what this discovery means and what it tells us about our history. 5:40

Yakymchuk said the discovery marks the first time signs of life were found in a coloured gemstone. He believes the discovery will garner more interest in furthering research into signs of life in gemstones.

The mineral found here, corundum, has colours ranging from brown, to deep red (ruby), deep blue (sapphire) and purple–pink. Although the purple–pink ones found are not the deep red colour, some scientists still call them ruby because they are part of the same mineral family. (Submitted by Chris Yakymchuk)

"It's only in the last few years, the last 10 to 20 years [that] we've had the actual analytical tools, all the detailed instrumentation where we can actually look at these microscopic pieces inside of gemstones and kind of figure out what they're telling us about life on Earth.

"The next step is to look in more places at more gemstones and see what else we can find, because I think these are little time capsules and we have no idea what we're going to find next and that's the most exciting part."

A microscope photograph in 'cross-polarized' light. The top-left grey coloured material under the microscope is the ruby. The rainbow-coloured material are the other minerals in the rock. This is a picture through a paper-thin slice of a rock and the light interacts with the various minerals in the rock to cause interesting colours. (Submitted by Chris Yakymchuk)

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2021-10-31 08:00:00Z
CBMidWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNiYy5jYS9uZXdzL2NhbmFkYS9raXRjaGVuZXItd2F0ZXJsb28vd2F0ZXJsb28tdW5pdmVyc2l0eS1ydWJpZXMtcnVieS1jaHJpcy15YWt5bWNodWstZ3JlZW5sYW5kLTEuNjIyNDAwNtIBIGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmNiYy5jYS9hbXAvMS42MjI0MDA2

Northern lights may be visible in much of the country this weekend after solar storm - Edmonton Journal

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MONTREAL — The northern lights may be visible Saturday and Sunday in parts of the country where they’re rarely seen.

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The federally-funded AuroraMAX observatory in Yellowknife said in a post on social media that auroras may be visible across most of the country this weekend.

The only parts of the country not included in an “alert” issued by the observatory are the southernmost points in Ontario, southwestern Vancouver Island and southeastern parts of the Atlantic provinces, including all of Nova Scotia.

But the observatory, run through a partnership between the University of Calgary, the City of Yellowknife, the Canadian Space Agency and a local astronomy organization, says it is still possible that the lights may be visible in those parts of the country.

Eric Donovan, a professor at the University of Calgary’s department of physics and astronomy who studies the aurora, said while he’s always hesitant to make predictions, observations suggest a large magnetic storm may make the aurora more visible further south than usual.

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“There’s a very good chance that tonight there will be very good aurora over large parts of Canada that don’t see it often,” he said, adding that the sky will have to be clear and other factors are at play.

“The aurora is driven by the solar wind, the solar wind is this gas of ionized particles that comes out of the sun all the time,” he said in an interview Saturday. “What happens is that gas interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field and that process extracts energy from the solar wind.”

One of the effects of that process is the aurora.

“What people are predicting tonight, is that there will be a dramatic increase in the rate that energy is being delivered to this system. That means the solar wind is more dense, has more charged particles, and it’s moving faster,” he said.

That would make the aurora brighter, visible over a wider area and move it farther south, he said.

The Space Weather Prediction Center of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a release the solar storm is the result of a solar flare and the ejection of plasma and magnetic field from the sun, a phenomenon called a coronal mass ejection.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 30, 2021.

——

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

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2021-10-31 02:44:13Z
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Scientists may have solved mystery of why some sharks bite humans - The Weather Network

The long-believed theory of why some sharks bite humans may actually ring true after all.

New research from Australia's Macquarie University has indicated that numerous shark bites by great whites could be a case of mistaken identity because of how close surfers, paddle boarders and swimmers on the ocean’s surface resemble seals and sea lions.

According to the research, white, bull and tiger sharks account for -- by a large margin -- the most bites on humans.

SEE ALSO: Why more great white sharks are showing up in Atlantic Canada

“We found that surfers, swimmers and pinnipeds (seals and sea lions) on the surface of the ocean will look the same to a white shark looking up from below, because these sharks can’t see fine details or colours,” said lead author Laura Ryan, a postdoctoral researcher in animal sensory systems at Macquarie University’s Neurobiology Lab, in a press release.

"Surfers are the highest-risk group for fatal shark bites, especially by juvenile white sharks."

Great white shark/Sharkdiver68/Wikipedia (Sharkdiver68/Wikipedia)

Ryan, an avid surfer, stated the study will help scientists gain a better understanding of what provokes certain sharks to bite humans.

The findings have prompted scientists at the Neurobiology Lab to develop non-invasive, vision-based devices as possible protectionary tools for surfers and swimmers from shark bites.

The latest study, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, was a hands-on experiment developed on years of work by the researchers to understand how sharks see -- by investigating the neuroscience of white sharks’ visual systems, Ryan said.

The team involved in the study did a comparison of underwater video of rectangular floats, seals and sea lions swimming, humans swimming in different patterns, and humans paddling on surfboards of distinct sizes in a sizable aquarium at Taronga Zoo. This included cameras that were motionless and travelling, directed at the water surface.

“We attached a GoPro to an underwater scooter, and set it to travel at a typical cruising speed for predatory sharks,” says Ryan.

GETTY IMAGES - tiger shark (Getty Images)

At the lab, the group relied on substantial shark neuroscience data to apply filters to the video footage, then establishing modelling programs to simulate how a juvenile white shark would interpret the movements and shapes of different objects.

To a juvenile white shark, humans swimming and paddling on surfboards bear striking similarities to seals and sea lions, the results showed. Because smaller surfboards were harder to differentiate from pinnipeds, they could present a more tempting prey than longboards or standup paddleboards to white sharks, who normally target smaller, young pinniped pups.

RISK OF SHARK BITES IS VERY LOW

Although the chances of a shark bite is very low, Australia remains one of the countries where one most often occurs -- registering six of the world’s 10 recorded unprovoked fatal shark encounters in 2020.

The occurrences of sharks biting humans has jumped in the past 20 years, and according to Ryan, surfers may have an elevated risk because they spend "far more time" in the ocean than swimmers, also frequently in deeper water.

“Sharks use a range of sensory cues to distinguish between different objects and zero in on their food, and these differ in sensitivity between shark species,” Ryan said.

People's fear of sharks, even with the low chance of bites, has led to preventive methods such as shark nets and drumlines, which further threaten marine life, according to the university.

“Understanding why shark bites occur can help us find ways to prevent them, while keeping both humans and sharks safer,” says Ryan.

Thumbnail courtesy of Sharkdiver68/Wikipedia.

Follow Nathan Howes on Twitter.

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2021-10-30 20:36:00Z
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Sabtu, 30 Oktober 2021

NASA's Juno Spacecraft Scopes Jupiter's Great Red Spot And It's Massive - Hot Hardware

Jupiter redspot
NASA's Juno probe has been beaming back some very interesting pictures as of late. The pictures have been giving scientists more insight into the atmosphere of Jupiter as well as the planet's Great Red Spot.

Before NASA begins its Artemis program early next year, it is going through all the new data that is being sent back to them from the space probe Juno. Juno first entered the orbit of Jupiter back in 2016. It has utilized a specialized suite of instruments in its 37 passes to send data from scans below the planet's cloud deck to scientists back here on Earth. Some of that data has surprised even NASA.

Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, stated, "Previously, Juno surprised us with hints that phenomena in Jupiter's atmosphere went deeper than expected. Now, we're starting to put all these individual pieces together and getting our first real understanding of how Jupiter's beautiful and violent atmosphere works - in 3D."

One of the specialized tools aboard Juno is a microwave radiometer (MWR). The MWR allows scientists to go beneath the cloud tops of the planet and delve into the various vortex storms. The most well known of these is the Great Red Spot, which is an anticyclone that was discovered nearly two centuries ago. The behemoth swirling storm is actually wider than our own Earth

earth redspot
The new data indicates that the cyclones are warmer on top, with lower atmospheric densities, while being colder on the bottom, with higher densities. Anticyclones, such as the Great Red Spot, are colder at the top and warmer at the bottom, as the name would suggest.

Another surprising find is that these storms are actually taller than once thought. Some extend 60 miles (100 kilometers) below the cloud tops. The Great Red Spot actually extends over 200 miles or 350 kilometers. What makes this so surprising is that the height suggests that the vortices extend beyond where water condenses and clouds form. This is also below the depth where sunlight warms the atmosphere.

The mere size of the Great Red Spot lends itself to allowing NASA to use instruments aboard Juno to detect Jupiter's gravity field due to the concentration of atmospheric mass within the storm. During a low pass of Jupiter's cloud deck, scientists were able to measure velocity changes as small as 0.01 millimeter per second. This data was then used to measure the depth of the Great Red Spot to nearly 300 miles below the cloud tops.

Marzia Parisi, a Juno scientist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said, "Being able to complement MWR's finding on the depth gives us great confidence that future gravity experiments at Jupiter will yield equally intriguing results."

In other Juno news, images of the north pole of Jupiter's moon Europa were seen for the first time recently. The icy moon may actually have livable conditions in its oceans due to water vapor apparently arising from plumes. Closer images are expected next year as Juno continues its voyage through space. 

There has been a lot of hype as of late surrounding space travel and exploration as NASA and other commercial space companies go further into the great unknown. While the expected Halloween launch of the commercial SpaceX rocket was delayed due to weather conditions, people seem to be more enamored than ever with what is beyond what we currently know of space and what inhabits it. 

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2021-10-30 15:24:00Z
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NASA delays SpaceX Crew-3 launch to November 3rd - Yahoo Movies Canada

You'll have to wait a little bit longer to watch SpaceX's third crewed NASA mission. NASA has delayed the launch of Crew-3 from early on Halloween to 1:10AM Eastern on November 3rd. The agency pinned the setback on "unfavorable" weather. There probably won't be another delay, though, as officials are predicting an 80 percent chance of good weather for the new date. Live overage of the launch on NASA's channel will start November 2nd at 8:45PM.

Crew-3 will bring NASA astronauts Raja Chari (the mission commander), Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron to the International Space Station alongside the ESA's Matthias Maurer. They're expected to dock at 11PM Eastern on November 3rd and will stay until late April 2022.

Crewed SpaceX flights are still relatively rare. Crew-1 launched in November 2020, while Crew-2 didn't lift off until April 2021. Crew-3 and the recent all-civilian Inspiration4 mission are steps toward making these occupied flights relatively routine — ideally, they'll soon be as uneventful as SpaceX's other flights.

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2021-10-30 17:56:13Z
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'The Blob' threatens carbon-sucking power of Pacific Ocean: study - Vancouver Is Awesome

A multi-year ocean heat wave known as “the Blob” may have temporarily disrupted the biological pump that cycles carbon dioxide deep into the Pacific Ocean for up to thousands of years at a time, a new study has found. 

The study brought together researchers from the University of British Columbia, the Hakai Institute and DFO’s Institute of Ocean Sciences. Together, they analyzed 271 biological samples collected along a 1,425-kilometre path stretching from the south coast of Vancouver Island into the middle of the Pacific Ocean. 

The results, published last week in the journal Communications Biology, showed significant changes in microbial species living on the ocean’s surface before, during and after the Blob first appeared in 2013. 

That change, say the researchers, could signal a re-ordering of the tiniest life at sea — microbes and plankton that act as one of the lungs of the global climate system, releasing but ultimately scrubbing more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere every year. 

“The Blob is one of the biggest heat waves we have on record in history... There's only going to be more of them as we go on with time because of climate change,” says lead author Sachia Traving, a marine microbiologist now at a deep ocean institute at the University of Denmark.

“It could push the bacterial communities into a change where the change is permanent... It won’t be able to recover back to the original state.”

podaac_blob_colordata_sst2015
Monthly average sea surface temperature for May 2015. Between 2013 and 2016, a large mass of unusually warm ocean water ('the Blob') dominated the North Pacific. NASA Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center

HOW DOES THE ‘BIOLOGICAL PUMP’ WORK?

The life-or-death balance known as the ocean’s “biological pump” begins near the sea surface. As miniature photo-synthesizers, phytoplankton sit at the bottom of the food chain, using the sun’s energy to convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into solid organic material.

They are a key part of an ocean system that is thought to scrub up to 30 per cent of human-produced greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere every year.

Some phytoplankton feed krill, shrimp and jellyfish, which in turn feed bigger fish, eventually making it into the mouths of sea life like sharks and dolphins. But not everything in the sea is eaten alive, and like on land, the dead eventually offer a meal to the tiniest of creatures. 

Enter microbic bacteria and archaea. Together, they act as garburators for rotting sea life, breaking down dead organic matter like whale poop, dead carcasses, seaweed — and plankton. 

Microbe populations latch on to this dead organic matter and begin to break it down. Whatever gets metabolized near the sea’s surface gets converted into carbon dioxide, eventually bleeding back into the atmosphere. Under normal conditions, much of the organic matter sinks deep into the ocean, their dead bodies taking the carbon to the ocean floor where it can stay for thousands of years.

“That’s really great because that makes the ocean this huge carbon sink that actually stores a significant amount of carbon dioxide in organic form,” says Traving.

Phytoplankton
By absorbing energy from the sun and combining it with carbon from the atmosphere, phytoplankton form the base of aquatic food webs. NOAA MESA Project

OCEAN HEAT WAVES THREATEN A FINE BALANCE

Scientists have generally assumed the role microbes play remains stable over time, mostly because they account for a huge diversity of species and population sizes.

But research has increasingly found warmer sea surface temperature can throw that stability out of whack, according to Traving.

When the Blob spread in 2015 — one of the biggest ocean heat waves in modern times — sea surface temperatures spiked between 1 and 4 C, extending as deep as 200 metres. 

As nutrient levels, including chlorophyll, dropped, the size of phytoplankton cells decreased. The fear, say scientists, is that the trend toward smaller phytoplankton means less carbon getting scrubbed out of the atmosphere and buried deep in the ocean.

That was bad enough, says Traving. To make matters worse, the research team found warmer seas offered prime conditions for several new species of bacteria, many of them who live independently of phytoplankton. Without latching on to the plankton, they remain at the surface, tiny engines thriving as they burn through dead matter. 

“If (microbes) are very active and they process a lot of organic material, they will also respire a lot of the carbon back, which will eventually end up in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide,” says Traving.

Traving says more research needs to be done to understand the scale of the phenomenon. What is certain, is that the climate crisis is expected to lead to more Blob-like heat waves all over the world’s oceans. It’s not a stretch, says Traving, to say that could push these ocean-roaming bacteria into a permanent change.

“Maybe the Blob itself wasn't really a tipping point as a stand-alone event. But if we get more of those and closer together in the future, then yes, the ecosystem will collapse and it's gonna like reorder itself in a whole new way.” 

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2021-10-30 02:01:00Z
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Here Comes the Sun: How a massive solar storm could put Canada at risk - Global News

Click to play video: 'How a solar storm could leave us disconnected' How a solar storm could leave us disconnected
How a solar storm could leave us disconnected

Get ready. An epic solar storm may be heading our way, one so big it could knock out power grids, damage satellites, cause internet blackouts, and essentially take down our modern life as we know it. It’s known as a 1-in-100 years solar storm.

Solar storms are an explosion of energized particles hurled from the Sun known as flares or coronal mass ejections (CME). Small scale storms occur regularly but every century or so there is an extreme eruption.

MORE SPACE NEWS: Meet the aurora borealis chasers in Alberta: ‘It’s like nothing else in the world’

On Earth, we are about to enter a busy season for solar activity.

According to research scientist Robyn Fiori, high solar activity occurs on an 11-year cycle, and we just got out of a low period.

“We’re ramping up from a period of very low activity where we didn’t see a lot of flares or coronal mass ejections to a point where we’re starting to see more and more activity, and we’re starting to expect the potential for more impacts,” Fiori said.

Fiori and her colleagues at the Canadian Hazards Information Service monitor the sun’s activity using both satellites located near and above the Earth, and ground-based instruments.

Robyn Fiori studies the sun’s behaviour and provides a warning for when major solar activity takes place. David de la Harpe/Global News

“These help us to look at the impacts of the solar activity on our magnetic field and also on the upper atmosphere and ionosphere so that we can look at potential impacts to the systems on and near the Earth,” Fiori told Global’s current affairs program, The New Reality.

The electrical power grid is one of those systems. With over four million customers, Hydro Quebec is acutely aware of the risks.

Louis Gibson, an engineer for Hydro Quebec, says the utility was hit by a big storm in March 1989 that caused a nine-hour blackout.

“To this day, this is the biggest impact a solar storm (has) had on any electrical utility. So this, for us, was a wake-up call, and we had to take this matter very, very seriously,” Gibson said.

MORE SPACE NEWS: Canadian-made space telescope to search for distant planets, explore ‘origins of life’

That power failure forced the public utility to install safety equipment to protect the system from sudden electrical surges caused by solar storms. It now regularly runs simulation scenarios to test everything.

“So there is a standard in place now in North America, where the electrical utilities have to make sure you have to plan and prepare, and it works so they can withstand a one-in-100 year strong event,” Gibson said.

“So just for this, we get help from various space weather experts.”

That once-in-100-years storm is what everyone worries about. The world witnessed one in 1859. It is known as the Carrington event, named after the amateur astronomer, Richard Carrington, who spotted the activity on the Sun.

The storm was so big that it literally set telegraph wires on fire.

It is likely to happen again, but this time it will impact a lot more than just our power grids.

Louis Gibson an engineer from Hydro Quebec working to ensure safety protocols are in place in case of a massive solar storm. Max Machado/Global News

“Energetic particles coming from the Sun can directly impact satellites, causing disruptions to their operation, even causing the satellites to become disabled or reducing the lifespan of the satellites,” Fiori told Global News.

Recently, there’s been talk of how critical cables running under the sea might also be at risk.

“These cables are the things that you use when you’re doing a Zoom call, when you’re surfing on the internet and you’re trying to get content from one country to another,” said Tony Frisch, who is the chief technical officer for Xtera, a provider of international subsea fibre optic systems.

“There’s probably enough cable in the seas to go around the world about 30 to 50 times,” he added.

Tony Frisch is the chief technical officer for Xtera, a provider of international subsea fibre optic systems. Braden Latam/Global News

A component of these cables, known as a repeater, is particularly sensitive to solar activity. It helps power all the electronics but if left unprotected from a storm, it could cause surges in the system and the cables could get fried.

“If you had a really big storm event, that could induce quite a large current to go through the cable,” said Frisch, who is based north of London in the United Kingdom.

But Frisch believes there is a solution. “If you knew that there was an event coming, you would in fact turn the cable system down and disconnect it until you were sure that that event was finished. Because the good thing about these really extreme events is that you get some warning for them.”

Fiori said by monitoring solar activity, they should be able to provide utilities and companies with a one-to-three day warning depending on the size of the storm.

“That’s the role of the Canadian Hazards Information Service, because space weather is a hazard. It’s a hazard of the technological age.”

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2021-10-30 11:00:24Z
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A NASA spacecraft just saw the north pole of Europa, the icy moon of Jupiter, for the first time - Space.com

The Juno spacecraft captured the north pole region of Europa for the first time, from a distance. NASA officials said it's their first view of the region and future flybys will offer a clearer look. (Image credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Andrea Luck)

We finally know what the north pole of Jupiter's moon Europa looks like, from a distance.

The distant view from NASA's Juno spacecraft orbiting Jupiter captures the previously unseen region of the icy moon, which has water vapor apparently arising from plumes and which may have habitable conditions in its ocean.

The image was taken from nearly 50,000 miles (80,000 kilometers) away while Juno was performing its primary mission to examine Jupiter's atmosphere. The resolution is admittedly quite rough, as individual pixels are rendered at roughly 31 to 37 miles (50 to 60 km) each. But you can see changes in the albedo, or light reflectivity, on an otherwise very bright moon.

Related: Europa, Jupiter's mysterious icy moon in photos

The view will improve next year when the spacecraft zooms only a few hundred miles above that same region, Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton said during a Thursday (Oct. 28) NASA press conference.

"This is a tantalizing example and a taste of what to come," added Bolton, who is director of the space science and engineering division of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). The Europa results were briefly mentioned during a larger discussion about 3D views of Jupiter's atmosphere, and the deep roots of the persistent storm known as the Great Red Spot.

Europa is a popular destination that has been imaged by spacecraft many times. The first close-up views were from NASA's twin Pioneer and twin Voyager spacecraft in the 1970s, revealing an icy surface scarred by cracks. Even more detail came during the Galileo mission, which orbited Jupiter and its moons between 1995 and 2003.

Quite a few spacecraft have flown by Europa on their way to other destinations, and the Hubble Space Telescope and other telescopes near or on Earth do turn their eyes on the moon from time to time. But what constrains these various views is they all have been on or near the ecliptic, which is the plane upon which the solar system's sun, planets and many of its moons orbit.

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Juno, by contrast, has a more polar-orbiting path that has shed unique views on Jupiter already, such as showing the extent and stability of its polar cyclones. The picture of Europa was created by citizen scientist Andrea Luck, using information from the JunoCam camera.

The press conference did not discuss what science could be performed at Europa's poles, but previous peer-reviewed research has discussed transient water vapor at the south pole or attempted geologic mapping while getting as close to the poles as possible.

Later in the decade, at least two major missions are expected to launch to Europa. The European Space Agency's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) will fly by Europa and several other icy worlds after launch in June 2022, while NASA's Europa Clipper will focus on the moon following launch in October 2024. Both missions will arrive and operate at Europa in the 2030s.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

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2021-10-30 12:04:44Z
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