Studies Show Jupiter Moon Has Violent Subsurface Oceans
By Harman Smith and Laura Generosa (nee Berwin), graphic artists and contractors to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, via Wikimedia Commons

Studies Show Jupiter Moon Has Violent Subsurface Oceans

on December 13, 2008

National Geographic News: “Jupiter Moon Has Violent, Hidden Oceans, Study Suggests” The hypothesized subsurface ocean of Jupiter’s moon Europa was already a hotbed for evolutionists’ hopes for finding extraterrestrial life.

Recent research from University of Washington oceanographer Robert Tyler has stoked these hopes by indicating that the ocean—if it exists—could be turbulent, which “translates into a higher potential for life” per evolutionary wisdom.

If there is an ocean, the pull may create “huge planetary waves” and tides.

The research is based on a new computer simulation that shows how Jupiter’s gravitational pull affects the far smaller Europa. If there is an ocean, the pull may create “huge planetary waves” and tides.

What’s that got to do with finding ET? Tyler believes the waves could help distribute heat, calling them “very energetic oceans.” The study, in this week’s issue of Nature, could also apply to other moons that may have oceans.

Of course, what no one explains is how turbulent water actually overcomes the hurdles of improbability to assemble life; their key line of evidence seemed to be that since it happened on earth, why not anywhere else where there’s liquid water? That sort of question-begging—believing where there’s water, there could be (and one day will be, the thought goes) life—drives much of our current space exploration agenda.

University of Arizona geologist Jeff Kargel drives the point home for us, telling National Geographic News, “The big thing is to have liquid water—and to the extent that [Tyler’s] paper adds an energy source—all the better for life’s prospects.” Water plus energy plus time equals life—even though this has never been experimentally shown and contradicts the scientific law of biogenesis.

On the same topic this week is the report of a water vapor-bearing planet outside of our solar system. The planet, HD 189733b, has surface temperatures that exceed a balmy 1650˚F (900˚C). Its molten core is covered with a gassy atmosphere, and it orbits very near its parent star.

Scientists have been looking for water vapor in the planets atmosphere for years, with BBC News noting they were “puzzled” and one of the scientists claiming some were “upset” when it wasn’t found previously as predicted. The recent detection was difficult, however, as the planet is so close to its sun that the radiation patterns of the two were hard to distinguish.

The same planet was found a few weeks ago to harbor carbon dioxide, as the BBC and LiveScience report. A team from NASA made the discovery using the Hubble Space Telescope.

The scientists are excited, hailing the discovery as a “proof of concept.”

“The very fact we are able to detect it and estimate its abundance is significant for the long-term effort of characterising planets to find out what they are made of and if they could be a possible host for life,” explained NASA’s Mark Swain, one of the team members. LiveScience writer Robert Roy Britt calls carbon dioxide “a potential fingerprint of life,” though obviously the high temperature of the planet precludes evolutionists’ hopes for life. Nonetheless, the scientists are excited, hailing the discovery as a “proof of concept,” with carbon dioxide the third of four major “biomarkers” discovered off earth (the others discovered are water and methane, says the Carnegie Institution’s Alan Boss; the fourth, oxygen, has yet to be detected).

Once again—as was the case just last week, for instance—secular astronomers mistakenly equate the existence of life’s ingredients and products with its ability to self-assemble. That’s why the search for water and anything else connected to life continues in space, while back home scientists are busy with the same search: finding support for what they already believe.


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