Encleadian Ocean Likely!

[Duxwing]

NEWS

Encleadus, one of Saturn's moons, has been discovered to likely have a ten-thousand meter thick ocean under its icy surface. This report comes from NASA, whose Cassini probe gave them the necessary data. Below is an artist's cross-section of what Encleadus may be:

Points of Discussion

• If the oceans contain life, and if their containing it is mundane, then life may be throughout the universe. other seemingly barren worlds like Encleadus could hold life; e.g., the many gas giants orbiting distant stars could have life-bearing
  
• If life is throughout the universe, and if star-faring civilizations would be obvious throughout our 13.7 billion light-year purview, then star-faring life might such a small fraction of all life as to be made unobservable by multi-billion light-year average separation.
  

-Duxwing

[Scotius]

Now, if only NASA and ESA (and other space agencies) would splurge money for a serious exploration mission to both Europa and Enceladus...But since it is highly unlikely, i would vote for Saturn mission. It's farther than Jupiter, but there is less radiation to deal with, and Enceladus and Titan are both promising targets for life-finding probes.

[vger]

The only drawback I see with a Saturn mission is, could NASA get enough funding to do a 'double probe?' One that would deploy TWO landers to different moons? If all they can get is a oneshot, stick with Europa. That's been the eyebrow-raiser that replaced Mars in recent years. And after they found bacteria growing in the Fukishima reactor, I'm really not concerned about any type of radiation hindering life development. It could even be a help.

Edited April 5, 2014 by vger

[Scotius]

While dropping a landers on Enceladus and Titan would be neat, i would gladly settle for Titan lander, and close Enceladus fly-by, aimed at one of plumes. Probe would get samples, and maybe even find traces of life But yeah, until we really start pouring money into space exploration, we will have to settle for Europa fly-by - and maybe orbiter.

[Seret]

40km straight down through the ice though. That makes getting in to take a peek pretty tricky.

[Camacha]

40km straight down through the ice though. That makes getting in to take a peek pretty tricky.

Well, getting down there seems possible, but getting signals back seems a bigger challenge to me. A probe that discovers profound lifechanging things beneath a layer of ice permanently shielding it from any contact with the outside world is no good at all.

[Duxwing]

Well, getting down there seems possible, but getting signals back seems a bigger challenge to me. A probe that discovers profound lifechanging things beneath a layer of ice permanently shielding it from any contact with the outside world is no good at all.

If the lander were of two parts, one remaining on the surface and one descending to the ocean, then the descending part could by flashing an infrared laser send its data to the surface, wherefrom it would be radioed home.

-Duxwing

Edited April 6, 2014 by Duxwing

[vger]

Well, getting down there seems possible, but getting signals back seems a bigger challenge to me. A probe that discovers profound lifechanging things beneath a layer of ice permanently shielding it from any contact with the outside world is no good at all.

Could a probe as light as a spacecraft needs to be have any hope of surviving? With the planet being yanked around by gravity the way it is, it seems to me that drilling down through the ice would be comparable to squeezing through a crack in a glacier and hoping nothing shifts.

[Jasel]

The Cassini space craft has flown through the plumes many times already and analyzed what is being sprayed out. The problem is that the water is being blasted out with some crazy force so anything left is the size of a dust mote: Read here.

Also the German Space agency was creating an "Ice Mole" to do exactly what Duxwing stated: See here. There's even a vimeo vid on it if you look up and can understand German.

I haven't heard anything on the project recently though so I would believe it got scrapped.

Yes...I've done waaaay to much research on Enceladus...but it's my second favorite moon.

[Seret]

Well, getting down there seems possible, but getting signals back seems a bigger challenge to me.

I don't think boring through 40km of ice is at all a trivial challenge. The deepest ice core I can find that we've done on Earth is a bit over 3km, and the deepest we've drilled through land is about 12km. Bear in mind that no surface probe has ever moved 40km on another planet, and you'd be asking it to do it through a solid object. The energy demands alone would put the probe into a class beyond anything we've ever built. I suspect you'd be looking at a nuclear power source.

Getting signals back would be easy, just lay a cable to a surface station as you drill/melt your way in.

[vger]

Also the German Space agency was creating an "Ice Mole" to do exactly what Duxwing stated: See here. There's even a vimeo vid on it if you look up and can understand German.

Aha, well 200m depth is certainly a lot more reasonable than 40km.

Curious question about glaciers though, are fissures so common that you could land pretty much anywhere and find one so shallow?

Edited April 6, 2014 by vger

[Stargate525]

I don't think boring through 40km of ice is at all a trivial challenge. The deepest ice core I can find that we've done on Earth is a bit over 3km, and the deepest we've drilled through land is about 12km. Bear in mind that no surface probe has ever moved 40km on another planet, and you'd be asking it to do it through a solid object. The energy demands alone would put the probe into a class beyond anything we've ever built. I suspect you'd be looking at a nuclear power source.

Getting signals back would be easy, just lay a cable to a surface station as you drill/melt your way in.

Yes, but we're a) asking it to move basically under gravity, and through ice.

I'm no rocket scientist, but I'd simply build a spherical probe whose surface heats to 100-200 degrees, and just let it drop. Nuclear would be preferable, but if we're tethering it to a surface station, there's no reason it couldn't also be solar (though the progress would be much slower).

[vger]

I'm no rocket scientist, but I'd simply build a spherical probe whose surface heats to 100-200 degrees, and just let it drop.

Having the probe melt its way through was the first thought I had too, but couldn't even take a guess at how much power that would require (or how long it would take). The lighter gravity needs to be factored into that too.

[Kryten]

Yes, but we're a) asking it to move basically under gravity, and through ice.

I'm no rocket scientist, but I'd simply build a spherical probe whose surface heats to 100-200 degrees, and just let it drop. Nuclear would be preferable, but if we're tethering it to a surface station, there's no reason it couldn't also be solar (though the progress would be much slower).

We're talking about 40km of ice here, there'd be immense amounts of pressure near the bottom. A shaft isn't going to survive unsupported, and probably neither would a probe.

[magnemoe]

We're talking about 40km of ice here, there'd be immense amounts of pressure near the bottom. A shaft isn't going to survive unsupported, and probably neither would a probe.

How large will the pressure be in the low gravity?

The pressure itself its not an huge problem, then drilling for oil you often drill kilometers down into rock.

One problem might be shift in the ice will break the signal cable, as its long it will have to be thin as in optical fibre.

you will have to use an reactor, no way to bring an 40 kilometer power cable.

using water pumps you can increase effect, you melt water then use it to cool the reactor and get hot water to melt the ice below.

[Scotius]

Water should freeze just behind the probe, plugging the tunnel and creating support for the walls.

[Klingon Admiral]

Water should freeze just behind the probe, plugging the tunnel and creating support for the walls.

And then you have no way for the probe to transmit it's data back.

[Sillychris]

The probe would have to leave a transmitter at the surface and unspool a wire as it descended.

[Scotius]

Solution: After reaching liquid water layer, taking all the samples and performing science probe should start melting its way back And unload data after reaching surface.

[Seret]

Or attach a big grunty acoustic modem to the underside of the ice and transmit it all as sound waves? Low bandwidth, but we're not in a hurry. You'd have to have some good maps of the properties of the ice though.

[Scotius]

Or attach a big grunty acoustic modem to the underside of the ice and transmit it all as sound waves? Low bandwidth, but we're not in a hurry. You'd have to have some good maps of the properties of the ice though.

Huh, interesting idea. But what about Extra Low Frequency radio waves? I know they can penetrate deep into the water - submarines use them to communicate with bases. Can ELF be used through ice layer? Problem is, they require extremely long receiver antennas - US Navy uses antennas kilometers long each.

[Kryten]

Problem is, they require extremely long receiver antennas - US Navy uses antennas kilometers long each.

That's something of an understatement; the antennae themselves are thousands of kilometres long and require an area several km on a side. They also require extreme amounts of power (something like 10MW), and have very low bandwidth, single digit bits per minute. Oh, and all of these are for the transmitter, meaning this would all have to somehow be put under 40km of ice.

[Scotius]

You're right of course. I did some reading in the meantime, and found the same facts. So this idea is out. Next one: Radar. Satellites did radar imaging of the land hidden under antarctic ise cap - which is kilometers thick too. Would it be possible to use radar waves to communicate?

[Motokid600]

How could we possibly cram a 40km cable into a space craft? No I think the simple solution would be for the probe to simply climb back up the hole it made. Have the drill assembly be a seperate module. Then once it breaks through the ice ( which I dout is pure ice by the way so a melter is no good ) the drill assembly remains at the face of the bored hole where it drops a tiny aquatic probe. Probe gathers its data, returns to the drill, re-attaches and climbs back up, transmits.

Or better yet. Drill assembly returns to the surface where it attaches the science module to the lander which returns to an orbiter and the orbiter goes home. Because we get more science points for returning samples right?

Edited April 6, 2014 by Motokid600

[jfull]

I think the best we can hope for in the immediate future is a probe that flies through the ice-plumes, or one that samples the surface ice near the cracks to check for organic traces.