Year: 2018-19
Daria Dobran
School: “Elena Vacarescu” School
City: Bucharest
I began to be really fascinated by the sky when, for the first time, my brother let me look through his telescope and explained to me what I saw. He showed me the Moon, the Big Dipper, the Small Dipper, the Polar Star, the nebulae. I could not believe that what seemed untouchable, just by some lenses could appear tangible. I was thrilled when I saw some kind of mountains on the moon and I thought that if I look closer I can see beings too! I thought the researchers did not know how to look well, surely if I looked closely I would found something, I even seemed to see children playing.
This year at school I started studying physics and the information began to link up with each other.
So, I am only at the beginning of the road among the stars, planets and constelations, and my arguments are less technical and more emotional.
I chose Europe the first time I saw the pictures, especially those made in 1996. The colors of the Jupiter satellite looked like the stones I am delighted to search for in the see during the summer, they had the same color, the same lines, some seemed to be taken from Europa itself.
On the other hand, Europa is covered with an ice-shell, perfectly spherical, just like the snowballs I make in the winter.
Ice is water, water means life, and also water gave birth to life on Earth. Astronomers believe the ocean under the ice crust could be two or even three times larger than all the seas on Terra.
And if we think of the abundance of life in the Earth’s oceans, I believe that the presence of water on this moon is an important indicator of life!
Just last year, in 2018, NASA concluded that Europa is one of the most suited places in the solar system to host life, and plasma changes around Europa are easily explained by the presence of water vapor jets.
So if vapors erupt under the crust of ice, they can be more easily picked up by a robot sent to get samples of that substance. There is no need for digging in kilometers of ice to get a sample of that water.
Terra is increasingly lacking in resources due to pollution, overcrowding and lack of care for nature. Perspectives are increasingly sad... the water ends, also the oil, whole species of animals and plants disappear. It is true that the distance to Europa is huge and we could not bring water or resources from there, but many things that seemed impossible several decades ago, not to mention thousands of years ago, have now become possible. I think science has unlimited resources.
Each generation of researchers has new ideas, more knowledge and things can evolve extremely fast.
A pupil raised in Europe wants Jupiter’s Europa to be studied too!
