Homework #6

CH9 Q41:

                If the oceans are made of water as we suspect then yes, we could definitely find some dissolved O2 in Europa’s ocean. As explained in the book, as high energy particles from the sun slam into water molecules on Europa they can cause chemical reactions which can alter the chemical composition creating oxygen in the oceans. Therefore, theoretically if we could transport fish from Earth to Europa they could potentially survive. It would have to be fish that can withstand extreme cold (which some can). Other forms of life that could survive on Europa would probably be more primitive forms of life that are single celled such as bacteria. We could find hypothetically aerobic and anaerobic forms of bacteria on Europa since there could be a presence of O2 on the moon. Multicellular organisms, although portrayed in the movie, more than probably do not exist on Europa if life does exist there.

CH10 Q50:

                The evidence that human activity can be summarized by the chart you (prof. Plavchan) presented in class. It showed the progression of natural occurrences on our Earth including volcanism, the El Nino effect, increased Sun activity and more, and how that has been predicted to effect temperature. Then CO2 increase in the atmosphere was presented which has been proven to have increased since the beginning of the industrial period on Earth. The effect of all the natural occurrences would have projected temperatures to have risen but only a degree or so more. This is not what actual temperature reading show. When the addition of the increase CO2 effect was added to the projections with the natural occurrences we see that the projections are accurate with the actual temperature increases being experienced on Earth concluding the deciding factor is CO2 increase in the atmosphere which has been shown to be caused by human activity. Simply put we need to limit our CO2 output throughout all mankind. This can be done following 2 ideas. The first is by creating a way in which to trap and/or chemically alter the CO2 emitted in the atmosphere. Underground basins have been given as a suggestion of a place to store the CO2. The second route is to limit and decrease the amount of CO2 emitted. This is tough because we as humans are becoming increasingly dependent on CO2 emitting fuel sources. Alternate avenues of energy are the solution for the train of thinking.

CH11 Q45:

                The transit method is a strategy in finding and identifying planets revolving around other stars than our sun. What we do is we take instruments that measure the light signature coming from other stars. The light that comes from a star is relatively constant. However, whenever a planet revolves in front of the star we see a dip in the light signature that we measure. This only works on planets that revolve in between its star and our visibility from Earth. If a planet’s revolution does not pass between its star and our visibility from Earth, we cannot use the transit method to find the planet.