Giant Geysers On Europa; Planetary Society Wants Robotic Mission ASAP

[czokletmuss]

Europa, an ice-swaddled jovian satellite that has long fascinated both scientists and science fiction writers, just got a bit more interesting. Data gathered by the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that plumes of water vapor hundreds of kilometers tall, possibly originating in a subsurface ocean, spew from the moon’s south pole. The phenomenon is similar to the sprays of ice particles found emanating from the saturnian moon Enceladus almost a decade ago.

Source: http://news.sciencemag.org/chemistry/2013/12/water-vapor-plumes-erupt-europa

[center

Pasadena, CA - In light of today’s announcement that Europa is likely spouting its vaporized ocean water into space, The Planetary Society calls on the White House and Congress to approve a new mission to explore this enigmatic moon of Jupiter to better understand its potential to support life.

“We have to explore Europa,†said Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye. “It will take a small adjustment to the Planetary Science budget to mount a mission that will have us solving problems that have never been solved before; there will be innovations and economic benefits. What if there are signs of life there? We would all think of our place in the scheme of things differently. It would utterly change the world.â€Â

With today’s discovery, Europa has made it easier for visiting spacecraft to study its habitable environment. Previously, the only known way to sample its liquid-water ocean was to land and drill through the ice – a complex and difficult endeavor. But now, a spacecraft has only to fly through Europa’s plumes to collect samples of water vapor which it can analyze for organics and other molecules.

Source: http://www.planetary.org/press-room/releases/2013/1212-the-planetary-society-calls-for-a-mission-to-explore-europa.html

Edited December 14, 2013 by czokletmuss

[Ralathon]

I hope they can confirm these geisers (Note the article says "suggest"). Maybe JUNO can take a few snapshots before Jupiter's radiation belts fry the camera. Access to subsurface water without nuclear drills would be very convenient.

[jwenting]

if they want it so badly, I'm sure they are committed enough to donate the money to make it happen out of their own pockets, rather than have the taxpayer bleed for their hobby.

[Ralathon]

if they want it so badly, I'm sure they are committed enough to donate the money to make it happen out of their own pockets, rather than have the taxpayer bleed for their hobby.

Cost of the average flagship mission: 1.1 billion.

Annual amount of money spend on perfumes in the US and EU: 12 billion.

Annual amount of money spend on cat food in the US and EU: 17 billion.

US military budget in 2011: 664.8 billion.

Tell me more how space exploration is bleeding you dry.

[Karriz]

It's a shame that the next mission to closely study the moons of Jupiter (JUICE) won't arrive there until 2030. And even that is more focused on Ganymede, for some reason.

There's almost twenty-year gap in between, and I certainly think that Europa should get it's own mission during that time.

[mdatspace]

It's a shame that the next mission to closely study the moons of Jupiter (JUICE) won't arrive there until 2030. And even that is more focused on Ganymede, for some reason.

There's almost twenty-year gap in between, and I certainly think that Europa should get it's own mission during that time.

I wonder why we have a 2020 mars rover yet no plan to do anything with Europa.

[SlyReaper]

It's a shame that the next mission to closely study the moons of Jupiter (JUICE) won't arrive there until 2030. And even that is more focused on Ganymede, for some reason.

There's almost twenty-year gap in between, and I certainly think that Europa should get it's own mission during that time.

I never did understand the reasoning behind that one. In my view, Europa is far more interesting than Ganymede, which appears to be little more than an inert lump of rock and ice. I have to wonder if the reasoning didn't just boil down to "biggest moon is best moon". Given this news, I wonder if the JUICE guys have time to do a slight redesign to include a sample collector, and re-write the mission profile to do a few orbits of Europa, hopefully timed well to fly through one of these plumes.

[Kryten]

The reasoning was simple. If JUICE was sent to orbit Europa instead, it would rapidly fail due to the radiation levels-Ganymede is pretty the closest galilean moon they can safely study, at least without a lot more money to send a more heavily-shielded craft. Juno is able to stay much closer to Jupiter because it's in a polar orbit (most of the damaging radiation is in belts in the plane of the ecliptic), and because it's aimed at a short mission duration anyway (1 year). NASA's main Europa mission concept is a multi-flyby probe rather than an orbiter, for similar reasons.

[Neil1993]

if they want it so badly, I'm sure they are committed enough to donate the money to make it happen out of their own pockets, rather than have the taxpayer bleed for their hobby.

A mission like this is hardly a hobby. Finding life, or the beginnings of life, on another planet/moon would prove that life is not simply a one-time fluke that ocurred only on earth. As well, the knowledge gained by studying extraterrestrial life would help us better understand how life evolved on earth and it would help us to find life elsewhere in the universe.

[PakledHostage]

I never did understand the reasoning behind that one. In my view, Europa is far more interesting than Ganymede, which appears to be little more than an inert lump of rock and ice.

There was also the proposed joint EJSM/Laplace mission to send two orbiters to study Europa and Ganymede. According to the Wikipedia article, the Europeans backed out of that project to go it alone with their JUICE mission because of uncertainties about NASA funding. And with the recent introduction of the H.R. 3625 bill to protect Orion and SLS from cancellation, you can bet that NASA funding for planetary science missions will be even less secure going forward, as cost overruns on the sacred cow programs will bleed everything else dry.

[mdatspace]

But this discovery is quite important. This discovery confirms the existence of a subsurface ocean, and possibly pockets of water beneath the surface at the poles.

[PakledHostage]

Does anybody know what opportunities there would be to use spectroscopy to investigate the composition of these geysers? What are the limitations of the currently available instruments?

[czokletmuss]

What's even most important is that there must be a quite warm under the icy crust - you need a lot of energy to heat up so much water so that it would erupt like this.

[mdatspace]

What's even most important is that there must be a quite warm under the icy crust - you need a lot of energy to heat up so much water so that it would erupt like this.

This could be proof of shallow pockets of water beneath the poles. It could be proof that the ice crust may be less thick than we thought.

[Motokid600]

This could be proof of shallow pockets of water beneath the poles. It could be proof that the ice crust may be less thick than we thought.

Which also raises the question.. how dangerous will it be to land a spacecraft on its surface? I like to picture it like one giant, writhing mass of ice that's constantly in flux. A fissure could open up and swallow a lander or one of these gysers could blast it appart. Not to mention there could be perpetual earthquakes ( Europaquakes? ).

If one were to land on it.. but a low pass flyby is something we should've done long ago. Hopefully Juno can get some good, new pictures. Cannot wait for 2017 lol.

Io is my favorite however. I'd die for some close ups of that moon.

[czokletmuss]

BTW, this is how the hypothetical mission to Europa could look like:

[Kryten]

Which also raises the question.. how dangerous will it be to land a spacecraft on its surface? I like to picture it like one giant, writhing mass of ice that's constantly in flux.

Well, it isn't. There are pretty much pristine crater ejecta-ray systems hundreds of kilometers across, that'd disappear within hours in a 'writhing mass of ice'- in fact all of the observed surface features are stable over time. Europa's surface might well be described as 'active' or 'in flux'-but only by geological standards.

[lajoswinkler]

It would be funny if the lander was blasted of the surface of Europa after the driller pierces the crust and water starts shooting out into the vacuum. Way more funnier than if it lands on solid ground covered by ice and the driller stops at a certain shallow depth.

[jwenting]

Cost of the average flagship mission: 1.1 billion.

Annual amount of money spend on perfumes in the US and EU: 12 billion.

Annual amount of money spend on cat food in the US and EU: 17 billion.

US military budget in 2011: 664.8 billion.

Tell me more how space exploration is bleeding you dry.

So those people can buy a bit less perfume and cat food for themselves and fund it...

The US military budget is of no consequence, and money well spent (though it could be better spent on readiness rather than keeping thousands of generals and admirals in their leather swivel chairs in the Pentagon).

It's the very concept of demanding someone else pays for your hobby that sickens me, not the money involved in any one particular event.

It's not just this thing. It's people demanding the government pay for their sports facilities, movie theaters, subsidise their bus and train tickets when they go drink themselves into a stupor (using food stamps to pay for the booze), give them free vacations, etc. etc.

[jwenting]

It would be funny if the lander was blasted of the surface of Europa after the driller pierces the crust and water starts shooting out into the vacuum. Way more funnier than if it lands on solid ground covered by ice and the driller stops at a certain shallow depth.

or it lands so hard on an iced over lake that it sinks through the ice, which then flash freezes around it, blocking all light from the solar panels and preventing the antennae from aligning with earth to transmit what little data the batteries can provide for.

[Savage117]

So those people can buy a bit less perfume and cat food for themselves and fund it...

The US military budget is of no consequence, and money well spent (though it could be better spent on readiness rather than keeping thousands of generals and admirals in their leather swivel chairs in the Pentagon).

It's the very concept of demanding someone else pays for your hobby that sickens me, not the money involved in any one particular event.

It's not just this thing. It's people demanding the government pay for their sports facilities, movie theaters, subsidise their bus and train tickets when they go drink themselves into a stupor (using food stamps to pay for the booze), give them free vacations, etc. etc.

You can't pay for booze with food stamps, it's not allowed and you will lose your food privileges if you try. Although I agree that U.S. citizens taxes could be better utilized.

On the subject though, I would love to see what they would find out from Europa over Ganymede. I don't know much about either moon but I bet Jupiter makes landing, or orbiting, either an extreme challenge, and possibly impossible with current tech. If they can land or orbit them despite Jupiter at current tech, they still have to orbit the planet first before ever landing on it and just those orbiters will take up decades of time getting built and going out there. When they finally land something they will have to deal with even more problems, seismic events, atmospheric phenomena, and surface phenomena. Mars is a cakewalk compared to Europa, its relatively quite geologically, it does have the dust storm thing to contend with, and I think because of its atmosphere it has less of a radiation problem. And we still lost several craft to Mars despite its relatively simple hurdles.

[astropapi1]

if they want it so badly, I'm sure they are committed enough to donate the money to make it happen out of their own pockets, rather than have the taxpayer bleed for their hobby.

Could you please tell me again why you are on these forums?

Go blame the military for making the taxpayers bleed for their "hobby".

[czokletmuss]

Image of the geysers:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2013/12/11/science.1247051

Edited December 14, 2013 by czokletmuss

[Whirligig Girl]

Although until now Eceladus was a liklier choice for a mission of this type, Europa is MUCH closer.

[Neil1993]

It would be funny if the lander was blasted of the surface of Europa after the driller pierces the crust and water starts shooting out into the vacuum.

It's the kind of thing that would happen in KSP!