NASA Plans to Land on Europa

reply to post by Ophiuchus 13


Hmm a laser...Not a bad idea at all really. That would take much energy though, as if a super heated rod wouldn't...Laser would be about 10x faster though. Drill would probally and eventually give out from all the work. Plus the resources they would use to keep it powered.

-SAP-

This pretty cool video taken from Aliens of the Deep documentary by James Cameron shows how they might get through the ice .


Unfortunately it seems we will have to wait a long time as the future Jupiter Europa Orbiter is just going to be an orbiter to collect data for future missions

The Jupiter Europa Orbiter would characterize the relatively thin ice shell above Europa's ocean, the extent of that ocean, the materials composing its internal layers, and the way surface features such as ridges and "freckles" formed. It will also identify candidate sites for potential future landers
www.jpl.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by Mkoll

Originally posted by Gastrok
reply to post by zazenlife

 

"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE."

Where is this from?

2010: The Year We Make Contact

As Jupiter is about to transform, Bowman returns to Discovery to give HAL a last order to carry out. HAL begins repeatedly broadcasting the message "ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE." The creation of the new star, which Earth eventually names Lucifer, destroys Discovery. However, in appreciation for HAL's help, Bowman has the aliens which control the monoliths to remove HAL's artificial intelligence from Discovery's computer core and transform him into the same kind of life form as David Bowman, and becomes his companion.

Originally posted by Mkoll

Originally posted by Gastrok
reply to post by zazenlife

 

"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE."

Where is this from?

deleted: already answered
This will be one of the most exciting missions NASA has ever set out on...I'll be glued to the media for this one!.

Does anyone actually believe for a second that NASA would announce that they found life on Europa?

Let's be realistic here.

Originally posted by SloAnPainful
Isn't the ice miles thick? They would need some kind of super heated rod to punch a hole through it and then drop the underwater probe. I would think pushing through that much ice would take a very long time...

Yes, I'd suggest between 2 and 10 miles thick. Not easy at all.

Originally posted by gortex
This pretty cool video taken from Aliens of the Deep documentary by James Cameron shows how they might get through the ice .

Unfortunately it seems we will have to wait a long time as the future Jupiter Europa Orbiter is just going to be an orbiter to collect data for future missions

I like the nuclear heated tunneller. I think they may have used similar to tunnel rock on Earth or at least designed the machinery.

The video also nicely illustrates how potentially tough it will be to communicate with the probe when under the ice although I imagine the autonomous side will have been perfected before they attempt the mission.

Progress on all of these missions is painfully slow.

Originally posted by zorgon
No reason at all to not expect the water beneath the ice on Europa to be teeming with life just like the deepest trenches in our oceans.

Indeed, life here exists in the most seemingly inhospitable places. You can't draw a drop of water from the bottom of ocean or a teaspoon of dirt from the land without encountering life. Which begs the question, why isn't it all over the solar system?

reply to post by SavedOne

post by SavedOne
Which begs the question, why isn't it all over the solar system?

How do you know it isn't , the Viking landers may have found a hint of life on mars in the seventies , the results are disputed but the possibility remains .
There are many Moons in the Solar System that are candidates for life and maybe a couple of planets , we have only just begun to look but I believe we will find our Solar System well stocked with microbial and more complex life forms .

Originally posted by zorgon

Originally posted by Gastrok
"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE."

Yeah funny that

WHAT A COINCIDENCE

Not really. In the Novelizatin of the Movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, the destination planet for the ship "Discovery" was Saturn -- Not Jupiter. Jupiter was used as one of the last-minute changes to the pre-production of the film, because the special effects could not do a believable job with Saturn's rings.

The 1968 film did not include the line "ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE". That was only in the sequel book 2010: Odyssey Two and the film based on the nook called 2010: The year we Make Contact. By the time 2010: Odyssey Two was written (in 1983), science already knew a lot about Europa and its potential for oceans and life. At the time of the books writing, Europa was one of the "darlings" among scientists for finding life elsewhere in the solar system.

So it comes as no surprise that Clarke used Europa. By that time, there was already a huge interest among scientists and NASA regarding the idea of life there. It was a logical choice.

Clarke understood that his second novel contradicted his first in a big way (by changing the setting to Jupiter instead of Saturn), but he was OK with the retroactive continuity change because Jupiter was used in the first film, and the film was successful.

I bet if Kubrick kept the original setting that Clarke had in his Novelization -- Saturn -- then Clarke's second book would have probably also kept the setting as Saturn, and used Saturn's moon "Titan" instead of Europa.

They may be testing this probe at lake Vostok in antarctica

Would seem like a logical place to test and check for life

interesting .but we must pause here in our speculation .they have been trying to drill into the Antarctic ice for some considerable time to reach lake VOSTOK with great difficulty ,and thats here on earth .So you melt the ice and instantly it freezes behind the probe .NASA ,i think were stuck !!!

reply to post by zazenlife


Is there any hard evidence that the oceans on Europa are indeed water? I don't know, which is why I'm asking. For all we know they are oceans of liquid nitrogen or sulfuric acid.

Originally posted by OptimusSubprime
reply to post by zazenlife

 

Is there any hard evidence that the oceans on Europa are indeed water? I don't know, which is why I'm asking. For all we know they are oceans of liquid nitrogen or sulfuric acid.

Here's an explanation from NASA as to why they believe Europa has an ocean of salty water .

Flying past Europa in January, Galileo's magnetometer instrument found that, near Europa, Jupiter's magnetic field changes direction every 5 and a half hours.
These rapid fluctuations indicate that an electric current is flowing through Europa. It is doubtful that the current is traveling through Europa's icy crust, since solid ice conducts electricity poorly. However, salty water (such as seawater on Earth) conducts electricity fairly well.
astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov...

Originally posted by MainLineThis
We wont find any life on that planet, even if it is there.

Its not a planet , its a moon

I think we should use a kinetic projectile to create an event that would send liquid water into space (which wouldn't be liquid for more than a second) then fly a craft through it to take the samples and return it to Earth.

Ah Like NASA did when they bombed the moon and Temple 1 eh? Well if they want to just fly through water the could go to Enceladus and fly through the geysers All that water just shooting out







Water water everywhere...

Nasa has a bad habit of "looking" for life but for some reason sends the wrong equipment to do so on every mission. I mean, look at the Mars science packages, they couldn't find life if it crawled up and waved hello for crying out loud.

NASA = Need Another Space Agency doesn't want to find life