NASA Mission To Jupiter Moon Europa Moves Step Closer To Launch (theguardian.com) 26
A NASA mission to explore the most tantalizing of Jupiter's 79 moons has been given the green light to proceed to the final stages of development. From a report: Europa -- which is slightly smaller than our own moon -- has long been considered a possible candidate in the hunt for alien life. Evidence suggests there is an ocean below the moon's thick, icy crust that might be tens of miles deep. Scientists believe this body of water could contain the right chemical cocktail for life and could even be home to some form of living organisms. Europa appears to have the hat-trick of conditions needed to kick off life: water, possibly chemistry, and energy in the form of tidal heating, a phenomenon arising from gravitational tugs acting on the moon. This could not only drive chemical reactions but also aid movement of chemical substances between rock, surface and ocean, possibly through hydrothermal vents.
It is proposed that the NASA mission, named Europa Clipper, will make a number of close flybys -- it cannot orbit the moon as Jupiter's radiation belt would fry its electronics -- carrying cameras and intruments to measure the moon's magnetic field. The mission will look for subsurface lakes and provide data on the thickness of the moon's icy crust. The team also hope to confirm the presence of plumes of water, previously detected by NASA's Galileo spacecraft and the Hubble space telescope. If confirmed, it would mean scientists would not need to find a way of hacking through the moon's icy crust to explore the makeup of the ocean.
It is proposed that the NASA mission, named Europa Clipper, will make a number of close flybys -- it cannot orbit the moon as Jupiter's radiation belt would fry its electronics -- carrying cameras and intruments to measure the moon's magnetic field. The mission will look for subsurface lakes and provide data on the thickness of the moon's icy crust. The team also hope to confirm the presence of plumes of water, previously detected by NASA's Galileo spacecraft and the Hubble space telescope. If confirmed, it would mean scientists would not need to find a way of hacking through the moon's icy crust to explore the makeup of the ocean.
All these worlds are yours, except Europa (Score:1)
Just flybys, no landing attempted (Score:3)
Dave Bowman will not be displeased.
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6 comments in and no Uranus jokes?
I am so disappointed in you bastards.
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6 comments in and no Uranus jokes?
I am so disappointed in you bastards.
I'm kind of disappointed in you. You see an article abont one of the moons of Jupiter and Uranus jokes are what come to mind? I took is as a sign that /. may be improving.
Re:All these worlds are yours, except Europa (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all..
Re:All these worlds are yours, except Europa (Score:4, Insightful)
The novel only provides the demand "Attempt no landings there."
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It's fun to piss off aliens, they have such cool death-rays.
And every other comment will be a '2010' reference (Score:3)
Well... maybe not *EVERY* other comment... but I'm willing to bet it's going to be a lot of them
Might be a time saver if somebody just starts a thread for those and any comment that makes reference to it outside of that thread gets flagged OT by mods who are sick of it by the time they've read the first half dozen of them.
Which, I'm aware, could make this OT as well.
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It's a good indication that they don't know anything else about Europa except that it was a location in a semi-popular book.
The other thread will be people hand-wringing about contamination with tardigrades.
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Re:And every other comment will be a '2010' refere (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a pity, because this is a pretty exciting mission. Unlike Mars, which has basically been scraped clean by billions of years of solar radiation, Europa has an icy crust 10 to 20km thick, which should afford any life in its ocean with some protection (mostly from Jupiter's radiation, which is far more significant for the Jovian environment than the Sun's). The idea of "tasting" the water venting from geysers has been around for a while, and I think there's also talk of a future lander mission. But hopefully being able to sample the water getting blasted out of Europa's ocean will give an indication of the kind of chemistry going on in an environment that has significant amounts of energy. I don't think we'll be lucky enough to get a strong signal for life itself, but we'll learn the chemical makeup of Europa's ocean, which should be able to answer whether it's a potentially suitable environment for life.
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That's cool. Which ones are orbiting tardigrade?
2010 was written 37 years ago (Score:1)
Is reasonable to assume that everybody coming to this site will immediately know the reference?
What about Wired's 100 Geek References (https://www.wired.com/2010/01/100-quotes-every-geek-should-know/). I honestly recognized 86 of the quotes easily (ie before I got to the end of the sentence) - Note that
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS—EXCEPT EUROPA
ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.
and
Bit my shiny metal ass.
Aren't there.
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Agreed. I mean, I like "Night of the Comet" as much as the next person. But a geek quote? Nope. Same with "Goonies." I like the Marx Brothers, too, but I'm not sure that I'd particularly call them geek quotes (though I'll admit I use, "I wouldn't pay that if I were you" from time to time).
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That's a deal at half the price.
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Or, perhaps, "I'd buy that for a dollar!"
I'd say that's a geek quote...
Electrostatic buildups don't occur that often (Score:2)
My God, it's full of stars!
"My God, it's full of stars!" (Score:1)
When you are full of stars, they let you gr... nevermind.
Moon envy (Score:2)
79? Holy crescent! Why can't Earth have a few more? Forget Greenland, buy some moons!
(I know, most are too small to notice.)
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I believe the plan is to launch Greenland into space and be the first to land on it.
no landing? (Score:2)
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There's no close-up ground imagery...we'd be lucky to manage a successful landing at all, let alone drop a rover in a location where it's not immediately trapped by terrain. It's also the second-worst radiation environment in the solar system next to Io, which will greatly limit a lander's lifetime compared to an orbiter that spends most of its time in lower-radiation environments.
We can design and send landers and rovers once we have a better idea what conditions they'll need to operate under.