Water plumes over Europa |
Water plumes over Europa |
Dec 12 2013, 04:55 PM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 401 Joined: 5-January 07 From: Manchester England Member No.: 1563 |
This seems like the relevant place to post this (could be wrong): Water plumes from Europa? Apologies if it's already been up. The link to the Science article at the bottom doesn't work for me, does anyone have a working link to the original? Cheers.
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Dec 12 2013, 11:39 PM
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#2
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
Wouldn't infalling comets deliver carbon to Europa as they do to other places in the solar system?
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Dec 14 2013, 04:32 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 611 Joined: 23-February 07 From: Occasionally in Columbia, MD Member No.: 1764 |
Wouldn't infalling comets deliver carbon to Europa as they do to other places in the solar system? Of course, the amount of organics delivered by impactors is not zero. But likely less than Mars (where e.g. the Viking mass spec failed to find them*) since modeling by the late Betty Pierazzo showed that the bulk of material re-escapes Europa because of the high impact velocity - see http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2000/pdf/1656.pdf Of course, these inconvenient considerations will be quietly ignored in all the hoo-ha clamouring for a Europa mission. It will be interesting to see if the observations hold up - is this Europa's ALH84001 moment, or is this going to be like the methane on Mars.....? (*Europaphiles have made much of oxidants in the ice as 'energy sources' - these same oxidants will mop up the organics in the ice too, rather analogously to Mars) |
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Dec 15 2013, 04:12 PM
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#4
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Member Group: Members Posts: 401 Joined: 5-January 07 From: Manchester England Member No.: 1563 |
Of course, the amount of organics delivered by impactors is not zero. But likely less than Mars (where e.g. the Viking mass spec failed to find them*) since modeling by the late Betty Pierazzo showed that the bulk of material re-escapes Europa because of the high impact velocity - see http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2000/pdf/1656.pdf Of course, these inconvenient considerations will be quietly ignored in all the hoo-ha clamouring for a Europa mission. It will be interesting to see if the observations hold up - is this Europa's ALH84001 moment, or is this going to be like the methane on Mars.....? (*Europaphiles have made much of oxidants in the ice as 'energy sources' - these same oxidants will mop up the organics in the ice too, rather analogously to Mars) Considering the abundance of icy objects that may harbour subsurface water in the solar system (and therefore other star systems) I think a mission to definitively confirm/deny the presence of an ocean, characterise it as much as possible, and investigate its chemistry (if possible) has scientific merit aside from just the hunt for space squid beneath the ice. That said, the target doesn't need to be Europa, and all else being equal Europa may not even be in the top five icy targets of interest for such information gathering*. However all things are not equal, especially in times of constrained budgets. I would wait and see if this 'plume' is an old faithful or a bathtub bubble before I begin worrying that resources spent on a putative Europa mission might be getting taken from more deserving causes...... * I wonder if there's any chance that, post DAWN's arrival there, even Ceres might climb higher? Odder things have happened, and there is some evidence for a water plume over Ceres pole too..... -------------------- |
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