Ahead of NASA's mission, James Webb telescope finds cues of a liquid water ocean under Europa's surface
Now, new observations from the James Webb Telescope (JWST) are revealing that Europa, which was often pictured as a still, silent shell actually has an active surface. In a series of experiments conducted by Southwest Research Institute, it was found that Europa's surface ice is crystallising at different rates in different places. This suggests that the planet is currently undergoing geologic activity, with scientists labelling the ongoing cycle between the subsurface and surface as 'chaos terrains'.
The study focused on two regions located in Europa's southern hemisphere – Tar Regio and Powys Regio, with the latter often referred to as one of the most intriguing areas on the moon's surface. In these locations, the James Webb Telescope found crystallised ice both on the surface and below it.
The experiments were crucial for scientists to understand how the ice transforms between different states. The result of these experiments, when combined with the newly received data from the James Webb Telescope, hints that Europa's subsurface may be hiding a huge liquid ocean beneath the surface.
Scientists also found some clues that Europa may have Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen peroxide. Upon further evaluation, it was found that CO2 on Europa's surface is unstable due to the moon's radioactive environment, which suggests that these geological processes were recent.
Ujjwal Raut, a program manager at the Southwest Research Institute and the co-author of the study, said that the 'data showed strong indications that what we are seeing must be sourced from the interior, perhaps from a subsurface ocean nearly 20 miles (30 kilometers) beneath Europa's thick icy shell. The evidence for a liquid ocean underneath Europa's icy shell is mounting, which makes this so exciting as we continue to learn more.'
In October last year, NASA launched Europa Clipper, a spacecraft that will explore Europa to determine if its underground ocean is habitable. However, the spacecraft will first head towards Mars and take around five and a half years to reach Jupiter's icy moon.
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Hans India
18 minutes ago
- Hans India
NISAR satellite mission result of global teamwork and tech: ISRO
New Delhi: The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), slated for launch next week, is a result of global teamwork and technology, said the Indian space agency. NISAR is the first joint satellite mission of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and NASA. NISAR will be launched by ISRO's GSLV-F16 from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC SHAR) in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota at 5.40 pm. It will be the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle's (GSLV) first launch into a Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO). The NISAR launch is the result of strong technical cooperation between ISRO and NASA/JPL technical teams for more than a decade. 'Built across continents in phases, NISAR is a result of global teamwork and tech. NISAR came together through years of integration and testing,' said ISRO, in a post on social media platform X. ISRO noted that NISAR has created a milestone of firsts. NISAR is the 'first dual-band radar satellite, it is the first GSLV to SSO, and the first ISRO-NASA Earth observing mission'. The GSLV-F16 will inject the NISAR satellite into a 743 km Sun-synchronous orbit with an inclination of 98.4 degrees. 'Two space agencies. One big win for Earth. NISAR is the first time @NASA and @ISRO have built Earth science hardware together. This powerful satellite will track changes on land and ice, from areas at risk for landslides and earthquakes to shifting glaciers and ice sheets,' NASA Earth shared in a post on X. Weighing 2,392 kg, NISAR is a unique Earth observation satellite and the first satellite to observe the Earth with a dual-frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (NASA's L-band and ISRO's S-band), both using NASA's 12m unfurlable mesh reflector antenna, integrated to ISRO's modified I3K satellite bus. NISAR will observe Earth with a swath of 242 km and high spatial resolution, using SweepSAR technology for the first time. "The satellite will scan the entire globe and provide all-weather, day and night data at a 12-day interval, enabling a wide range of applications. NISAR can detect even small changes in the Earth's surface, such as ground deformation, ice sheet movement, and vegetation dynamics," according to ISRO. The mission will support many critical applications, including sea ice monitoring, ship detection, storm tracking, soil moisture changes, surface water mapping, and disaster response.
NDTV
an hour ago
- NDTV
Earth Imaging Satellite NISAR Exposes NASA's Weaknesses, ISRO's Strengths
The upcoming rocket launch from Sriharikota can be aptly summed as 'NASA's envy, India's pride!' The rocket the Americans tried to kill will now launch a billion-dollar bird. The very unique Earth imaging satellite jointly made by India and US named the 'NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar' (NISAR) satellite, is a technological marvel and would be a game-changer in saving lives from impending natural disasters. That the world's oldest democracy, US, and the world's largest democracy, India, are working together on this most expensive satellite that has cost upwards of $1.3 billion. It is a testament to the growing Indo-US bonhomie and strategic ties. But this mission also exposes the double standards the US exercised on India in yesteryears and is also ironical that America's most expensive civilian Earth imaging satellite ever made will be launched using an Indian launcher - the same rocket Americans wanted to desperately scuttle and kill its development in the early nineties. ISRO persevered relentlessly for nearly two decades and succeeded so much so that now top officials from NASA will actually be present at India's space port to witness the historic liftoff on July 30. According to ISRO, the NISAR satellite weighs 2,392 kg, and it will scan the entire globe and provide all-weather, day-and-night data at a 12-day interval and enable a wide range of applications. NISAR can detect changes in the Earth's surface, such as ground deformation, ice sheet movement, and vegetation dynamics. It will be launched using the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark 2 (GSLV Mark 2), which will be powered by an indigenously developed cryogenic engine - the same technology that the US administration, especially its Bureau of Export Control, wanted to deny to India by working overtime with the then USSR. It was the 1990s and India was steadily developing its rockets and wanted to acquire the sophisticated cryogenic engine technology from the then USSR. It was under American pressure that Russia did not do technology transfer to India, but instead gave about half a dozen ready-made cryogenic engines to India. Subsequently, India struggled for nearly twenty years before mastering the complexities of cryogenic engine technology. The Americans used all the power of technology denials, sanctions at their disposal to try and make sure India did not acquire this technology. But then these tech-denials turned a blessing in disguise, and the scientists at ISRO toiled hard, and today it is the home-made cryogenic engine which will launch the NISAR satellite. Some would say this is an irony of ironies, and some would say it is egg on the face of US. Dr V Narayanan, chairman of ISRO, had helped India master the cryogenic engine, which makes it a proud moment for him to see the NISAR sticker on the payload fairing of the rocket that houses the cryogenic engine inside. At the end of the day, the US scientists have swallowed their pride and are sheepishly going to watch the launch of a satellite where they have invested nearly $ 1.15 billion. It is this exorbitant cost by NASA that should also be a reason for Americans to squirm and be uncomfortable. Wendy Edelstein, NISAR's Deputy Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), asserted, "NISAR is a 50-50 partnership between NASA and ISRO. It represents the largest collaboration in space between the United States and India." Interestingly, India has spent about Rs 800 crores on the NISAR project, which works out a little less than $100 million. NASA confirmed that it included 'ISRO investment for development, launch operations, and mission operations'. NASA has contributed the L-band radar, which penetrates vegetation and soil to reveal subsurface changes, while ISRO has provided the S-band radar, optimised for detecting surface-level features like foliage and terrain. These radars are mounted on a 12-meter mesh reflector antenna, roughly the size of a school bus, allowing the satellite to scan nearly all of Earth's land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. India has not only contributed the equivalent S-band radar, but is also providing the rocket and the launch port and launch services, so why NASA's cost is $1.1589 billion and ISRO's cost is just $100 million? Here lies the heartwarming tale of Indian frugal engineering and cost optimization: It shows the profligate approach to engineering adopted by NASA. When quizzed by the US media on the issue of costs, Nikki Fox, Associate Administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said at a briefing, "I will defer to them [ISRO] on their final costs". There are many reasons behind the huge cost incurred by NASA, one of them being that most of the development of the instruments and payloads they fly are made by huge multi-national corporations and they not only need huge profits but also need to share dividends with their share-holders. ISRO, on the other hand, being a national entity does these things in-house and has no reason to pad up the cost to share profits with share-holders. Additonally, an ISRO official said that when their scientists travel to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena in California, they would stay in shared $100 a day room while the NASA scientists when they travel to the UR Rao Satellite Center in Bengaluru would stay in an over $500 a day room. This automatically inflates the costs. Also, India usually makes only one instrument the one that will fly into space, while NASA makes an engineering model and flight model, which leads to doubling the cost. The way human power is distributed is also very different between NASA and ISRO at the Indian space agency. In the case of NISAR, which has taken over 11 years to build, the teams at ISRO working on multiple satellites and the salaries in India also turn out to be much lower when converted into dollar terms. The top manager at ISRO also pointed out that ISRO engineers are willing to put in long hours and work over weekends, while the US contract engineers are reluctant to put in long hours. The premium for insurance also adds to the costs at ISRO since the government takes the full liability and no insurance is taken, In other countries, insurance premiums can be a huge cost. Incidentally, when India launched its communication satellite using the SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket, India also took insurance. This huge difference in NASA's and ISRO's costs remains a huge enigma for the making of the NISAR satellite, which was made with an understanding of equal partnership. Not just NISAR, there are still many bitter-sweet oddities in the Indo-US space relationship. India's first rocket launched from Thumba on November 21, 1963. It was an American Nike Apache rocket and the world got its first direct-to-home television broadcast - thanks to the Satellite Instruction Television Experiment (SITE) in 1975 pioneered in rural India. Then came the era of sanctions, which ended only when the Indo-US Civilian Nuclear Deal was inked in 2008. Despite the sanctions, ISRO opened its heart out and flew two American instruments to the moon on Chandrayaan-1 in 2008 free of cost. This is contrast with the 2025 Astronaut mission of Shubhanshu Shukla to the International Space Station using the Axiom-4 flight where India shelled out hard cash of about $70 million for this single seat to the Americans. Interestingly, when the two democracies have worked together, they have had fruitful outcomes. It was Chandrayaan-1 which discovered the presence of water on the lunar surface, opening up flood gates for the colonisation of the moon. And now, on the NISAR mission, when NASA had all but given up the making of this costly satellite as its other foreign partners had backed out, it was ISRO that stepped in in 2014 and said ,'let us forge this partnership to make the world's single most expensive civilian Earth imaging satellite'. Hence, today the $1.3 billion NISAR satellite, which is sometimes also referred to as the NISARGA satellite, has been conceived in the true spirit of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' or the 'world is one family,' concept, and sits atop the rocket ready for lift off from Sriharikota in the true spirit of 'vishwa bandhu'. The contrast in cost structures, the cultural differences in engineering ethos, and the historical ironies are a compelling story of resilience, frugality, and strategic partnership. Life, in a way, is coming full circle for US and India, as the friendship grows to explore the unknown frontiers of space. India's frugal technology development, when clubbed with the US high technology can lead to a huge cosmic leap.
New Indian Express
an hour ago
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ISRO chief: India must triple satellite fleet in three years
HYDERABAD: ISRO Chairman Dr V Narayanan on Friday said India would need to nearly triple the number of its operational satellites in space, from the current 55 to around 150, within the next three years to meet growing national demand. Speaking at the GP Birla Memorial Lecture on Indian Space Programme – Accomplishments, Challenges and Future Perspectives, Narayanan said ISRO aims to match global standards in space technology, applications and infrastructure by 2040. Narayanan was bestowed with the GP Birla Memorial Award at the event. Recalling ISRO's achievement in placing 100 satellites in a single launch, Narayanan highlighted how the data accumulated by the organisation benefits everyday sectors such as agriculture and fisheries through accurate weather alerts and resource mapping. He confirmed that 12 launch vehicle missions are scheduled for this year, including the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), which will be launched using India's GSLV F16 rocket on July 30. 'Now we are working on building our own space station. We are going to have our own Chandrayaan landing. At present, 55 satellites are in orbit serving the common man. In the next three years, that number has to become nearly three times,' the ISRO chairman said.
