Landing sites on Europa identified

[Soylent Brice]

Landing sites on Europa identified



A RIGOROUS analysis of the jagged terrain of Jupiter's moon Europa is helping to identify safe landing strips for future missions.

Europa is thought to have an ocean of water beneath its icy shell. The latest study is the first to use images from the Galileo spacecraft, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003, to generate measurements of Europa's slopes. "This is the first quantitative sampling that gives hard numbers, real numbers that you can believe," says Paul Schenk of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.

Schenk used shadows, plus pictures taken from two different angles, combined into 3D images, to calculate the slopes of various regions of Europa. He examined four different kinds of terrain: ridged plains that make up the majority of the surface; impact craters; so-called "chaos" regions where icebergs appear to float in a frozen soup; and long smooth stripes called dilational bands.

more: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327222.700-landing-sites-on-europa-identified.html

[phantom power]

1. "Attempt no landings there"

[guitar man]

2. are they mad?

What about the warning?

"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there"

:crazy:

:rofl:

[berni_mccoy]

4. LOL!

Thanks, that was funny!

[Soylent Brice]

5. someone was bound to say it.

[ArbustoBuster]

47. Hi, HAL!

[myrna minx]

7. LOL.

:rofl:

[Robeysays]

42. hahaha

nice

[theHandpuppet]

3. Fascinating.

Unfortunately, exploration of our system's planets and moons is proceeding so slowly I'll probably be gone by the time they make the most exciting discoveries.

"The issue of topography is very important as we put together the objectives for the Europa orbiter mission," says Bob Pappalardo at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, who is working on the Jupiter Europa Orbiter scheduled for launch in 2020."

[NeedleCast]

6. Awesome

I'd rather see us making another landing on Titan but Europa looks to have a really unique (at least in our solar system) environment as well and the the idea of possible liquid water oceans below the ice surface is one of the best possibilities for finding extra-terran life in our solar system.

[Soylent Brice]

8. i was just reading another article about

a lake of liquid hydrocarbons being found on Titan.

we need to get crackin' on exploration.

[Robeysays]

41. titan's entire cycle is based on hydrocarbons

mostly methane and ethane. but the easiest way to think of it is replace everything here that has to do with H20, with CH4 and BAM you have titan.

[Soylent Brice]

43. weird!

[MercutioATC]

9. "Life", schmife.

Europa has ice.

Ice is frozen water.

Water is a combination of Oxygen and Hydrogen.


Imagine the benefit to planetary (and/or interplanetary) exploration if we didn't have to boost all of that breathing air and fuel off the surface of Earth.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. So you're arguing that ice is breathing air and fuel, eh?

How interesting.

[MercutioATC]

13. Water ice is.

And Europa appears to have relatively uncontaminated water ice.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. Maybe, but that's got nothing to do with fuel and breathing air, does it?

[MercutioATC]

17. You're obviously going somewhere with this.

Ok...what's your point?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. My point is- we should attach propellors to spaceships.

Spaceships go really fast. And that speed will cause the propellor to spin faster. And we can use that spinning propellor to make energy. And we can use that energy to make the propellor spin faster. And thus make the spaceship go faster.

I estimate we could get to Europa in 30, 40 minutes tops. And bring back that ice to solve all our energy and global warming needs.

[MercutioATC]

19. You're implying that a fuel source that doesn't need to escape Earth's gravity isn't useful?

?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. I'm implying that water is not a fuel source.

Except for the water-powered car that the government suppressed.

[MercutioATC]

22. Really?

Are you denying that water is made of hydrogen and oxygen or do you contend that we can't perform a 6th grade science experiment on Europa?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. I am not denying that water is made up of hydrogen atoms and oxygen atoms.

It is not, however, made up of H₂ or O₂.

I suppose you could find a 6th grader to explain your basic problem to you.

[MercutioATC]

26. Pass an electric current through water and see what you get.

Maybe H2 and O2?

Seriously, what's your issue with this?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. What's my issue? The laws of thermodynamics.

Oh MercutioATC, is there any issue you won't be completely wrong on?

[MercutioATC]

28. Fine, explain to me why one can't take water from Europa and make rocket fuel.

(or why doing so wouldn't make sense)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

29. Are you not a grown up?

Don't you have a high school diploma? Something that would have required at least some basic scientific education?

[MercutioATC]

30. If you're stating that one doesn't get more out of a reaction than one puts into it, I concur.

Electrolysis would use more energy than it created.

However, fuel actually IN space currently requires a huge expenditure of power to get it off Earth.


Is that expenditure of energy less than the energy loss incurred by electrolyzing water? Frankly, I don't know...but the proposal is sound, if possibly not economical.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

31. ...

[MercutioATC]

32. You can choose to insult me rather than answer my questions if you'd like.

But if you're not going to explain what you think I've missed, I don't see much point in continuing this.

[byronius]

33. Your tone belies ignorance.

http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-08/fly-me-moon-water-ice

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

34. Ah, elemental aluminum powder.

That's brilliant.

:rofl:

[Occulus]

39. Okay, I've read the exchange, here's the original question, I think

"Is more energy expended to manufacture fuel on Earth and send it into space than is expended by manufacturing fuel on a body of smaller size and less mass, and thus lower gravity, and sending it into space?"

It's a legitimate question if we're serious about exploring the solar system. I'm going to tentatively say 'yes', because of the shallower gravity well.

Now, an asteroid like Ceres, well... launches would cost very little, once the operation were completed and operational.

We need fusion-powered propulsion. Badly.

[Soylent Brice]

51. it's coming:

http://www.iter.org/default.aspx

http://www.iter.org/newsline/Pages/96/1319.aspx

[byronius]

40. Okay. I see you're quite serious about being an ass.

Never mind.

[inna]

37. great pic, i almost stole it - but it's missing "ed" at the end.

"i am disappoint" :P

[Posteritatis]

46. So you are also disappoint?

;)

[whopis01]

50. The problem is

From where are you getting the energy to electrolyze the water? You would either have to carry a fuel source to Europa or find a local fuel source to generate the electricity to electrolyze that water into H2 or O2. Either way, you are going to end up with less energy stored in the H2 and O2 then you had in the other fuel source.

So, the fact that there is a substance on Europa that could be converted to fuel doesn't really do that much for us by itself.

However, you do have a point - so long as you address the actual issue at hand. Can you find a lighter, but less useful fuel source that you could carry to Europa in order to make the heavier, but more useful H2/O2 mix. So, you are really talking about energy density. The only source you can easily find with a higher energy density than H2 is going to be nuclear fuel. So, perhaps a nuclear reactor to generate the electricity would work - assuming you can create a reactor that is light enough (because you would have to take the weight of the reactor into account when computing the energy density of the whole system).

So, it is theoretically possible - but whether it is practical or not is another matter.

Of course, this is a very simplified discussion of the problem as energy isn't the whole story here - for space travel, you need propulsion - so not all forms of energy are going to be all that useful.

[whopis01]

53. He is not completely wrong on this one

You are right in that you are not going to get more energy out of the system than what you use on Europa. However, the energy sources that are useful for propelling a ship through space and the sources that are useful for generating electricity are not always the same and that is where you can (theoretically) win.

If you carried a higher energy density (but less useful) source to Europa - nuclear fission based, for example - you could use that lighter (more energy dense) source to produce the heavier (less energy dense) but more useful H2 and O2 on Europa.

Alternatively you could use other energy sources found locally on Europa - like solar - which are not very useful for generating thrust (at least not conveniently or quickly) and use that to generate the electricity to get your H2 and O2.

I'm not suggesting that these are easy or practical - but it is a complex enough problem that you can not simply invoke the laws of thermodynamics and rule out the usefulness of generating fuel on Europa. Sometimes the form that the energy is in is far more important than mere amount.

[Posteritatis]

35. Sure, you will

And you'll expend more energy cracking the water than what you'll get out of using the resulting fuel.

[MercutioATC]

36. Absolutely.

But will you expend more energy than it took to make that fuel on earth AND boost it into space?

[Veruca Salt]

21. But I wanted a snow cone!

:cry:

[csziggy]

15. Now all we need are "The Ice Pirates" to haul all that water where we need it!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087451/

[Soylent Brice]

23. sssssshhhhhhh!!!!!! last time i mentioned ice pirates i got moved to the lounge:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x8690908

[csziggy]

45. Oh. yeah - Anjelica Huston was my comment.

[izquierdista]

10. This is a good thing

We need to have a place picked out to exile Bush and Cheney after they get convicted at the Hague.

[inna]

12. this pic is amazing, it looks like a network of freeways!

what the heck are those??

[jberryhill]

14. Those Dang Europans Are Out Four-Wheeling Again....

Planet of the Rednecks.

[Soylent Brice]

25. from the article:

" The only smooth features were the dilational bands, which slope at about 5 degrees or less. These broad tracks, tens of kilometres wide and hundreds of kilometres long, form when cracks in the ice shell open in response to the gravitational pull of Jupiter and the other large moons. The cracks then fill with water and open even further, leaving smooth tracks in between. "It's a little bit like a mid-ocean ridge spreading on Earth," Schenk says. "


:crazy:
crazy stuff.

[and-justice-for-all]

38. A very interesting Moon and well worth investigating further..

and they are no landing people there...DUH!

[rcrush]

44. So when are we going to blow up Jupiter?

Thats what I would like to know. Wait I have Spore! I'll just go and blow up Jupiter myself!

[David Zephyr]

48. Clear back in 1979, Richard Hoagland speculated Europa was a top-frozen ocean.

Richard Hoagland's concept about Europa thirty years ago still blows my mind.

Arthur C. Clark's book 2061 -- written in 1987 -- dealt with this subject and it was my favorite of the four books (2001, 2010, 2061 and 3001) by Clark in that series.

Europa, over all other celestial bodies in our solar system, holds the greatest interest to this human.

I love this news story and thanks, Soylent Brice, for sharing it. I also like your Soylenty first name.

[Soylent Brice]

52. expect to see either

Weland Yutani style terraforming in the next century, or the singularity to finally take place.

Personally, I'm ready to be uploaded and zipping around a matrioshka brain.

Your welcome, and thanks for the compliment!

[whopis01]

54. Actually, Clarke dealt with it in 2010 as well

While it didn't spend as much time on Europa as did 2061, it did talk about the ice covered oceans. If I remember correctly, the Chinese craft landed there to refuel (from the subsurface oceans) and was destroyed by some vine-like lifeform under the ice.

[David Zephyr]

55. You are right.

I'd forgotten. I loved the first three, but didn't care for the final 3001 book. Anyway, you are correct and on the money, whopis01. :hi:

[whopis01]

59. Yeah - 3001 was a bit of a dissapointment, but the other three were fantastic. n/t

[comrade snarky]

56. Hoagland's claims of being the first to propose

Europa has a liquid ocean are dubious at best. Phil Plait's bad Astronomy page details the actual time line starting with an article published in 1971 by John Lewis, a scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/hoagland/credentials.html

It's a beautiful concept, just not one thought up by the endlessly self promoting Richard Hoagland.

[Union Yes]

49. Can we send our Conservative population there? Please say we can

[LLStarks]

57. Screw Europa. Enceladus is more promising. nt

[Lagomorph]

58. From that picture, it looks like...

...we can expect traffic jams when we get there.