We're on the Way to Europa
planetary.org
We're on the Way to Europa
1–10 of 11 posts
Re: We're on the Way to Europa
#2But but... "All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace."
Re: We're on the Way to Europa
#3super excited for a Europa mission!
Re: We're on the Way to Europa
#4That's an interesting way to say "there's a line item in a budget that hasn't been passed".
Re: We're on the Way to Europa
#5For anyone who doesn't know about the Clipper: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/ > "The Europa Clipper is a concept under study by NASA that would conduct detailed reconnaissance of Jupiter's moon Europa and would investigate whether the icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life."
Europa is a very interesting moon; the atmosphere has oxygen and there's an ice shell that could hide considerable amounts of water. Could there be microbial life?
On the sci fi side, here's a wikipedia article about terraforming Europa: http://goo.gl/KNDV82
Important note: > Europa receives about 540 rem a day (500 is already potentially fatal) from Jupiter's large radiation belts (10 times stronger than Earth's Van Allen radiation belts), and may prove a health threat to colonists. The satellite lacks a magnetosphere, which not only leaves it exposed to radiation by Jupiter, but to the solar wind.
Re: We're on the Way to Europa
#6For anyone who doesn't know about the Clipper : http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/ > "The Europa Clipper is a concept under study by NASA that would conduct detailed reconnaissance of Jupiter's moon Europa and would investigate whether the icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life." Europa is a very interesting moon; the atmosphere has oxygen and there's an ice shell that could hide considerabl…
Also ESA Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE):
Re: We're on the Way to Europa
#7ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE
Re: We're on the Way to Europa
#8For anyone who doesn't know about the Clipper : http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/ > "The Europa Clipper is a concept under study by NASA that would conduct detailed reconnaissance of Jupiter's moon Europa and would investigate whether the icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life." Europa is a very interesting moon; the atmosphere has oxygen and there's an ice shell that could hide considerabl…
Luckily water is pretty good at blocking that sort of charged particle radiation. As off-Earth environments go underwater is pretty damn convivial. People go Scuba diving for fun!
Re: We're on the Way to Europa
#9For anyone who doesn't know about the Clipper : http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/ > "The Europa Clipper is a concept under study by NASA that would conduct detailed reconnaissance of Jupiter's moon Europa and would investigate whether the icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life." Europa is a very interesting moon; the atmosphere has oxygen and there's an ice shell that could hide considerabl…
It is hard for me to get excited about just doing orbital science, especially since ESA's JUICE is already going to be doing this in the 2020s. I'd be much more excited if they got to deploy something like the VALKYRIE Icy Moon Diver: http://www.geek.com/science/nasas-ice-drilling-europa-robot-...
Re: We're on the Way to Europa
#10ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE
When I saw the headline that is all I could think of too.