Year: 2018-19
Diana Garcia, Albanis Garcia, Felipe Gutierrez, Rafael Torrellas, Alesandro Medina, Andres David Gonzales, Diego Leon, Edmundo Finol, Javier Tavarez, Luis Camacho, Manuel Rodriguez, Matias Fuenmayor, Nicola Di Gaetano, Nicolas Fereira, Gianpiero Gonnella, Eric Reichel, Santiago Cabrera
Schools: Colegio Jose Antonio Sucre, Liceo los Robles.
Grade: 5-6
City: Maracaibo
Teacher: Prof. Patrick Morton
For months and months, our teacher, Prof. Patrick Morton, showed us information from diverse sources, including JPL, NASA, and Astronomy magazine. We also saw lots and lots of fantastic NASA videos from the two Voyager, Galileo and other missions concerning those mysterious red stripes on Europa’s surface.
We decided to start our own team investigation, because we were really amazed! We imagine our team walking and inspecting those stripes, in our astronaut suits over frigid Europa! Don’t they look like roads or channels?
We watched intensively a video where NASA scientist Bratt Darton tries to explain that these reddish-brown stripes could be evidence of some type of microbial life, perhaps slushy algae or similar, spreading out from some type of eruption among the ice cracks on Europa.
Darton said that more than 100 additional stripes were observed in the infrared wavelength, and that some algae in the región of Tatio, Chile, present the same type of colors and behavior, some of our parents live in that region and have also observed that phenomena. It has been observed that there are no craters on Europa’s surface, and that implies constant surface activity, and apparently sub surface heating with the consequence of liquid water thanks to Jupiter’s gravitational influence on that small enigmatic moon.
So? If there is water AND heat, there’s also oxygen!! It’s obvious that this possible inner ocean could be very dark, but that wouldn’t be a problem for life because in our own planet several species of fish, algae and bacteria live and evolve deep down in our oceans without light.
Based on the classes we received about our own primitive oceans millions of years ago, our team believes that creatures similar to Ammonites, Trilobites, and Ortocerae could actually be living there.
It must never be forgotten that important chemicals and gases such as methane, orgánics, salts, sulfates, and carbonates are constantly “on the move” in Europa.
We think that the best way to confirm life there is to send an automated submarine that NASA and JPL are testing in Arctic waters as we have seen on NASA videos.
