Discoveries using the telescopes on Mauna Kea

[SBH]

Not sure if any Mauna Kea telescopes are researching Europa, but NASA is making a big announcement at 8 am this morning.

http://www.space.com/17933-nasa-televisi...ce-tv.html

[Eric1600]

This discovery about sub-surface oceans on Europa is based on data from the Hubble. If we did have the TMT, it would be 10x more powerful and we would know even more about Europa, among other things.

FYI -- here's a detailed article showing some of the plumes on Europa. http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s...oon-europa

Hubble spotted plumes nearly 5 years ago. We've suspected there's water there for about 30 years since the Voyager flyby and we also know from Cassini showed evidence of water on Enceladus a few years back too.

[TomK]

SBH - as Eric1600 pointed out, this was a Hubble discovery, but some of the observatories on Mauna Kea are often used to support NASA planetary work, especially the IRTF. About 50% of its time is used to support NASA's solar system work, so there may have been a contribution from the island.

The actual paper will be published in a couple of day's time. When I have a little time, I'll have a look to see if there was any contribution from Hawaii.

[SBH]

Thank you, I knew it was a Hubble discovery, just wondering if any of our telescopes are looking at it too now plus I wanted to keep it Hawai'i related.

Could be some very exciting discoveries of sea life in the oceans of Europa in the future.

[Eric1600]

quote:

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Originally posted by SBH
...I wanted to keep it Hawai'i related.

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In my opinion it is just another reason why we should be supporting the TMT as we will be loosing the 26 year old Hubble soon. NASA hopes to keep it going until at least 2020.

[SBH]

My uncle Dale was VP of Lockheed's Space Division in Sunnyvale, CA, he was part of the team that built the Hubble.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

My uncle Dale ... was part of the team that built the Hubble.

Your Uncle Dale did some mighty fine work.

“We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, because we are still each other’s only hope,” James Baldwin to Margaret Mead in the book A Rap On Race

[TomK]

More mysterious hydrogen blobs have been discovered, much closer this time which allows a much better understanding of the phenomenon. Gemini North on Mauna Kea was used in the study.

http://www.gemini.edu/node/12570

One bit of the article caught my attention because it reminded me of something I learned many years ago which has stuck in my mind; the random walk of photons. In this case, the photons we detect may have spent hundreds of thousands of years bouncing around inside the blob before they escaped and were then detected by us millions or billions of years later. It means whatever created those photons might no longer exist once the photons leave the blobs.

Years ago, I learned that the random walk process meant that photons created in the center of our sun take roughly 100 thousand years from being created to escaping the sun's photosphere. Most people know (I hope) that sunlight takes about 8 minutes to reach the earth, but wonder how many know that the light they see was created so long ago?

[PaulW]

Amazing stuff, thanks Tom. No, I never knew that.

[TomK]

Not exactly a discovery by the Mauna Kea observatories, but certainly related.

"Mars-like ice rediscovered in Hawaii volcano, but might not last"

https://www.newscientist.com/article/210...-not-last/