95 worlds and counting, and the 'bot
on the Discovery channel show "95 worlds and counting" they have nice animations of Europa cracks opening/closing with the tides, moving at 3mph they say, with water gushing up and freezing. (also nice animations of Triton, Titan, Io). If true, we could just drop the submarine in the water. I'd guess a Europa Orbiter could spot any such cracks (wouldnt they be really bright in the infrared)? just a thought, from a lurker (mostly) Bill Niedringhaus == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
IJW Satellite Newsletter -- 2001 # 3
Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2001 11:34:07 -0700 From: "Robert R. Howell" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: IJW Newsletter -- 2001 #3 To: IJW Satellite List: ; IJW Satellite Newsletter -- 2001 # 3 Two items of recent news (well at least one news, and one the lack thereof): Here is a message from John Spencer regarding recent Galileo and Cassini observations of Io: Galileo images during the "G29" Io flyby on December 30 2000 show a new large (Pele-sized) pyroclastic deposit around Tvashtar, presumably related to the bright infrared event reported by Franck Marchis et al. on December 16th. In addition, the Cassini spacecraft saw a large plume over Tvashtar during its late December / early January Jupiter flyby. This is faintly visible in emission as a "topknot" in the Cassini movie of Io in eclipse available at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby/gallery/gl_pages/pia02882.html There have not been any further reports of observations of the outburst initially detected by Imke de Pater and coworkers on Feb. 22 and described in the last newsletter. (I'm calling this event 0102A.) If you did get further observations, please let me know. == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: About EUROPA PROBE GRAPHIC
I think this project is great! Makes me think of the incredible stuff that comes out of high school and college science and engineering competitions. It's all well and good to have major designs done by the PhDs of the world, but some of the ideas already emerging from this group (including our own PhDs, of course!) are beginning to crystallize into real workable plans. Now if we can just get the decision makers to pay attention. Just to throw in another thought along this line. I have argued extensively (and eloquently, I hope) about the need to pursue these explorations for the pure scientific knowledge purpose, and have (reluctantly) agreed that at some point there needs to be a payoff. The question is: If we're thinking about mining the asteroids for nickel, iron, etc., or the other planets for whatever it is they are composed of, what will be necessary to make such efforts profitable? We've seen sci-fi movies like the "Alien" series that start out on some place being mined by huge machines, but what will be so valuable that the investment, not to mention the transport, will be worth it? If we use up all our nonrenewable resources on Earth such as oil, iron, coal, etc., are we supposed to just keep on going further and further out and depleting whatever we find out there, too? Not a particulary happy prospect. If the resources are finite here, won't they also be finite "out there?" We're supposed to be asking questions, right? Watch the skies! G. B. Leatherwood - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2001 6:14 PM Subject: Re: About "EUROPA PROBE GRAPHIC" Okay, Hibai, I can use all the help I can get. This is a group project, so we all take part in it, but we do need someone to help cut through the various discussions and come up with a solid determination. -- JHB In a message dated 3/6/2001 12:18:55 PM Alaskan Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I agree there could be some graphic work done on all this. If publicity is what you want, we all know things get into us through the eyes much easier. But, think of it. When working out some sketches of the "ICEpick probe" you can't be very say specific. I think that right now, it would be very hard to agree on a design, besides we are not Von Braun and his team. If you want to get some sketches, you may well need to do what special effect designers do: get some of cassini, get some of galileo, some of pahfinder, some good imagination and mix it all up. I mean, we agree on some things but we can not be very concrete in these things... we're just discussing ideas. I don't think we can go much further. This is something you need to know before getting your hands to the pencil: - A list with the components of the probe. (like: high gain antenna, radar, gyroscopes.) - And then what each of them looks like. (can be looked up anywhere) this is what anyone who makes sketches NEEDs to work out something good. He/she then works out the overall aspect of the whole thing. I like to do this stuff, so if anyone has that ~list I will be happy to try. -- Hibai Unzueta [EMAIL PROTECTED] == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/ == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
Re: 95 worlds and counting, and the 'bot
-Original Message- From: William P. Niedringhaus [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wednesday, March 07, 2001 10:27 AM Subject: "95 worlds and counting", and the 'bot on the Discovery channel show "95 worlds and counting" they have nice animations of Europa cracks opening/closing with the tides, moving at 3mph they say, with water gushing up and freezing. (also nice animations of Triton, Titan, Io). If true, we could just drop the submarine in the water. I'd guess a Europa Orbiter could spot any such cracks (wouldnt they be really bright in the infrared)? just a thought, from a lurker (mostly) Bill Niedringhaus Well, first there's a general belief that these cracks really open all the way only rarely -- if at all. The show confidently expressed ONE theory about Europa's ice: Richard Greenberg's belief that it's thin -- only a few km -- and that cracks occasionally do open all the way to the surface. But the opposing view of Bob Pappalardo et all (which is probably more popular) is that the ice is quite thick (dozens of km) and that the cracks are just zones where two crustal plates are slowly rubbing past each other, and the friction occasionally melts zones and pockets of liquid water that don't penetrate very deep. Even if Greenberg's right, actual surface gushers of water must be very rare -- a team led by Cynthia Phillips has just finished combing the Galileo and Voyager photos looking for any sign of surface activity on Europa, and has not only failed to find any, but has concluded from the lack of recent "plume" patterns of expelled ice crystals (like the plumes of material left by Io's volcanoes) that surface vents of any significant size only open on Europa every few tens of thousands of years. And even if we were lucky enough to find one, the water would be gushing out so violently under high pressure that there would be absolutely no way to stick a sub down through it in any case. So, I'm afraid, your idea definitely goes down the toilet for at least two and maybe three reasons. However, your suggestion to look for small areas of recent activity by IR mapping is a different matter. Jeffrey Van Cleave has done several papers on that one, and pointed out that a thermal-IR mapper on Europa Orbiter could still detect the excess warmth of the ice around an eruption site YEARS after it went off -- and since the fresh ice from such an eruption will have different thermal inertia than older Europan surface material, by making maps of the rate at which Europa's surface cools and warms during its day-night cycle, even sites where eruptions had gone off hundreds of years ago could probably be accurately detected. It's quite possible that such an instrument will be carried by Europa Orbiter. Bruce Moomaw == You are subscribed to the Europa Icepick mailing list: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Project information and list (un)subscribe info: http://klx.com/europa/
