Message ----- Original Message ----- From: Thomas Green To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Sent: Friday, November 22, 2002 2:15 PM Subject: RE: Listening to Europa
This might be flawed thinking. Assuming the geophone is dirt cheap compared to ice-radar and laser altimeter, the problem is landing the geophones on the surface. Any kind of soft landing would greatly increase the cost. Hard landing (impactor) probes might be a risk until the technology is proven. ______________ Yep, and there's another very big problem -- the question Europa Orbiter was originally supposed to answer (whether Europa currently has a liquid ocean) has now been answered almost conclusively by Galileo's induced magnetic-field measurements. It does have such an ocean, and it covers the entire moon, rather than being broken up even into very big basins. The main purpose of Europa Orbiter has now changed: it is needed to locate the best possible landing sites for later Europa landers (of which there will be few for a very long time) -- and that requires mapping of as much of the moon as possible with photos, near-IR composition maps, and radar sounding to try to locate the thinnest areas in the ice crust. Simply landing a seismometer at one spot on the surface -- or even several spots -- won't do that at all. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
