Zitat von Ulrich Elkmann im Beitrag SpX-DM2 und darüber hinaus. Nebst der Beantwortung der Frage: "Wer ist Elon Musk"?

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18:06: Start.
Der Start hat den Europa Clipper zunächst in einen Parkorbit gebracht, um ihn in die Position zu bringen, von der er durch die zweite Zündung auf den Kurs zu den beiden Swingby-Manövern am Mars (27.2.2025) und der Erde (12.1.2026) gebracht werden kann.

2. Start der Falcon Heavy in diesem Jahr, 96. Start für SpaceX. 2023 haben sie insgesamt 96 Starts durchgeführt.

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Ich koppel' das mal aus dem "Wer ist Elon Musk"-Strang vom Oktober 2024 aus, weil das gerade eine eigene Abzweigung genommen hat. Der Europa Clipper soll ja nach der Ankunft beim Jupiter am 11. April 2030 die großen, nach bzw. durch Galilei benannten Eismonde näher in Augenschein nehmen und mit seinem Radar Daten aus 10 bis 20 km Tiefe aus der Eisschicht gewinnen (da nach manchen Modellierungen diese Packeispanzer zwischen 50 und 100 km dick sein könnten, könnte das inkonkludent ausfallen). Eine der beständigen Diskussionen seit 40 Jahren rankt sich darum, ob solche Tiefenozeane, die durch den Gezeitenrieb flüssig gehalten werden, Leben entwickelt haben könnten (das erste Auftreten hat in Arthur C. Clarkes "2010", der Fortsetzung zu "A Space Odyssey" von 1982 stattgefunden). Und zufällig stolpere ich gerade über dies hier:

Zitat

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The deep ocean floor is covered in naturally-occurring batteries that make oxygen... Wait, WHAT?! This has HUGE implications for life on icy moons. Interesting New Paper #3...

A truly extraordinary paper has just been published in Nature Geoscience: “Evidence of dark oxygen production at the abyssal seafloor,” by those doughty warriors for truth (…deep breath… people who put all that work in deserve to have their names mentioned when that work is being discussed… OK, here we go…) Andrew K. Sweetman, Alycia J. Smith, Danielle S. W. de Jonge, Tobias Hahn, Peter Schroedl, Michael Silverstein, Claire Andrade, R. Lawrence Edwards, Alastair J. M. Lough, Clare Woulds, William B. Homoky, Andrea Koschinsky, Sebastian Fuchs, Thomas Kuhn, Franz Geiger & Jeffrey J. Marlow. Phew!

It’s all about polymetallic nodules, so I’d better explain what they are first.
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So, this really is an astounding discovery. The production of oxygen by these manganese and iron and cobalt and nickel nodules seems to be, as far as we can tell so far, the result of a purely chemical reaction. But that purely chemical oxygen production is enabling biological life at these extreme oceanic depths.

Here’s a link to a good report from Science Daily.

And here are the juciest quotes…

"The polymetallic nodules that produce this oxygen contain metals such as cobalt, nickel, copper, lithium and manganese -- which are all critical elements used in batteries," said [Franz] Geiger, who co-authored the study. Geiger is the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and member of the International Institute for Nanotechnology and the Paula M. Trienens Institute for Energy and Sustainability

"When we first got this data, we thought the sensors were faulty because every study ever done in the deep sea has only seen oxygen being consumed rather than produced," [Andrew] Sweetman said. "We would come home and recalibrate the sensors, but, over the course of 10 years, these strange oxygen readings kept showing up.

"We decided to take a back-up method that worked differently to the optode sensors we were using. When both methods came back with the same result, we knew we were onto something ground-breaking and unthought-of."

To investigate this hypothesis, Sweetman shipped several pounds of the polymetallic nodules, which were collected from the ocean floor, to Geiger's laboratory at Northwestern. Sweetman also visited Northwestern last December, spending a week in Geiger's lab.

Just 1.5 volts -- the same voltage as a typical AA battery -- is enough to split seawater. Amazingly, the team recorded voltages of up to 0.95 volts on the surface of single nodules. And when multiple nodules clustered together, the voltage can be much more significant, just like when batteries are connected in a series.

"It appears that we discovered a natural 'geobattery,'" Geiger said. "These geobatteries are the basis for a possible explanation of the ocean's dark oxygen production."
–Science Daily. (Materials provided by Northwestern University. Original written by Amanda Morris.)

This is a beautiful example of something that we're going to see again and again, when we examine the totality of a planet like Earth, and treat it as an evolved system: the geosphere actively enables the biosphere. They are inextricably entwined. In particular, inorganic chemistry complexifies over time in such a way as to create the conditions for organic chemistry. Put more simply, rock chemistry generates the conditions for egg chemistry.

The deep sea has lungs. They produce enough oxygen for life to flourish, and they do it without sunlight, in deep water, purely chemically. Sure, most of the oxygen down there still comes from biological activity miles above, dissolved into the shallow surface waters, and carried into the depths as it cools and falls. But hey, this new source is a radical discovery.

The implications for life in the liquid water oceans, under the surface of icy moons, are obvious, and enormous. So I'm going to predict now, with medium confidence (and a couple of caveats, to follow) that we may well ultimately discover similar polymetallic nodules, producing oxygen through similar chemical processes, on the warm seafloors of the liquid water oceans under the frozen crusts of icy moons.

The same sea floor volcanic vents that melt the ice to make those liquid water oceans will also provide the manganese, iron, cobalt, nickel, et cetera, that these nodules require.

Obviously, this requires the icy moons to have rocky cores with a fairly high degree of manganese, iron, nickel, and cobalt content. (OK, maybe not much cobalt.) I think this will turn out to be the case for a high percentage of icy moons.

As I'm arguing in a series of posts, I think liquid water oceans on icy moons will turn out to be the commonest homes for life in this universe. And the biosphere in such oceans would have to be powered, not by sunlight, but by the gravitational energy of the planet tugging on the moon’s core, thus keeping it molten. Which is great, but… those liquid water oceans are under a mile or two of solid ice, incredibly far from the sun. Zero sunlight down there. No photosynthesis...

So polymetallic nodules could potentially solve the oxygen problem, performing the function photosynthetic plants do on Earth.

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https://theeggandtherock.com/p/the-deep-...r-is-covered-in