Posted on 09/07/2018 2:11:28 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Just because Jupiter's moon Europa is coated in ice doesn't mean all that ice is the same temperature.
And now, scientists have mapped the hot and cold spots on the moon's surface using data gathered from Earth, with accuracy down to 125 miles (200 kilometers). While most of the temperature variations they measured can be explained by sunlight's influence on the ice, there's one unusually cold spot that is stumping the scientists behind the new research.
That spot, which falls on the moon's northern hemisphere, stood out in images taken at different times of the day, which surprised the scientists. They weren't sure what might be causing the local coldness and didn't know of any geologic features there that could be responsible.
Probably unrelated but nevertheless intriguing is a coincidence on the opposite side of the moon: an unusually warm area at Pwyll crater, which is one of the youngest impacts on the moon. That made more sense to the team, they wrote in their paper about the research, because scientists know that craters on other solar system bodies tend to retain heat compared to their surroundings.
The measurements are based on data gathered by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in Chile. Then, they compared those measurements with the temperatures predicted by a thermal model of the moon, which considers how much sunlight hits the world and how the icy surface reflects that light, based in part on observations made by the Voyager 2 spacecraft.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Call Ghostbusters!
I knew a woman with a really weird cold spot. It covered her entire body and her attitude.
I got one of those.
*ping*
Sounds like my ex-wife.
I think that I dated her sister.
The reason Europa was off limits is there was a life form there that was just at the beginnings of its evolution towards civilization................
Maybe it isn’t that the spot is relatively cold; it’s that the rest of the surface is relatively hot. That is to say, it may be shielded from internal heat sources.
I’m just here for the one-liners
I had a “lost weekend” back in the eighties.
All I remember is leaving the air conditioner on really, really high.
Sorry about this, my bad.
that’s why Billy Goat Clinton has been roaming off his own pasture so much
If something must be named for the loser of the last Pres. election, it might as well be that unusual cold spot.
That weird cold spot must not go unnamed.
I offer . . .
The Hillary G
Some alien kid left the refrigerator door open....and is going to be in big trouble when Dad gets home.
No, I think you dated my first wife. Did she ever pull up in your driveway and ask where she could park her broom?
Obviously that part of Europa was ordered "neat". Thanks fieldmarshaldj.
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And there's a warm spot at Pwyll crater... interesting, if memory serves, Pwyll was a character in the Mabinogeon./blockquote>
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