an astro-chat with

Professor Don Kurtz

Honorary Professor, University of Lincoln, UK

Wednesday, 11 December 2024

7:00-8:00 pm

Live online

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In 1609 two extraordinary scientists, the Italian Galileo Galilei and the German Simon Marius, independently found four moons orbiting the giant planet Jupiter. Marius named them Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. The Earth passes between the Sun and Jupiter on 7 December, so Jupiter is up all night over this holiday season. With steady hands and binoculars, you can see these four moons for yourself. The second Galilean moon, Europa, is fascinating. It is about the size of Earth’s moon, but it is covered in a 20-km thick sheet of ice with a vast ocean 60-150 km deep below that. Europa has far more ocean water than the Earth does. On 10 October 2024, just two months ago, NASA launched the “Europa Clipper”, the biggest solar system satellite yet. In this talk we will look at Europa, the Europa Clipper mission, and discuss the possibility of life on Europa.

This is our 20th Astro-Chat with our distinguished guest Professor Don Kurtz. The session will include an illustrated introduction followed by questions and answers. Members of the public will be able to ask questions in the live-chat. The event is hosted by Professor Andrei Zvelindovsky at the University of Lincoln, UK.