NASA Europa Missions, projects and proposals for the 2020s |
NASA Europa Missions, projects and proposals for the 2020s |
Mar 5 2014, 12:53 AM
Post
#1
|
|
Forum Contributor Group: Members Posts: 1374 Joined: 8-February 04 From: North East Florida, USA. Member No.: 11 |
|
|
|
Oct 27 2015, 07:36 PM
Post
#2
|
|
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3516 Joined: 4-November 05 From: North Wales Member No.: 542 |
Great article on Europa from Mike Brown with a landing site recommendation, plus link to the new paper with free access:
http://www.mikebrownsplanets.com/2015/10/i-know-i-know.html EDIT: Coincidentally Van Kane has just posted a couple of Europa entries, also discussing a possible lander, on his futureplanets blog. http://futureplanets.blogspot.co.uk/2015/1...-accompany.html |
|
|
Oct 28 2015, 04:45 PM
Post
#3
|
|
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
The Europa science and plans are exciting, as Europa news always is.
I'm trying to connect this discussion of Europa to the melt-lens theory of melt-through, in which the water that causes chaos is not arising directly from the ocean, but in lens-shaped zones of liquid water that sometimes contact the surface, but are not in contact with the ocean when they do. It seems like the dynamics of ocean-surface contact are still way outside our understanding, and of course, the Europa mission would be the step to inform that (further? totally?). As exciting as a lander would be, it sounds like the risk is very high. Maybe radar could be used to find a flat landing site, but the close-ups from Galileo make it look like Europa may not have a lot of flat landing sites. |
|
|
Nov 2 2015, 10:23 PM
Post
#4
|
|
Member Group: Members Posts: 715 Joined: 22-April 05 Member No.: 351 |
As exciting as a lander would be, it sounds like the risk is very high. Maybe radar could be used to find a flat landing site, but the close-ups from Galileo make it look like Europa may not have a lot of flat landing sites. John - the purpose of the hi-res imager on the spacecraft is specifically to find the smooth(er) spots in the interesting areas,which all seem to be fractured surfaces. The ice penetrating radar (they have a surface topography mode as I recall) probably don't have a small enough footprint to safely target a landing site. They should determine whether or not there are lake lenses within the ice. -------------------- |
|
|
Nov 3 2015, 01:16 AM
Post
#5
|
|
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 |
The ice penetrating radar (they have a surface topography mode as I recall) probably don't have a small enough footprint to safely target a landing site. If there's a reflective mode, radar can determine smoothness/roughness at the scale of the wavelength, which is much smaller than the scale of the footprint. But that's ambiguously confounded with other properties of the surface, and I don't know if the data will be useful for that purpose. |
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 27th September 2024 - 07:06 AM |
RULES AND GUIDELINES Please read the Forum Rules and Guidelines before posting. IMAGE COPYRIGHT |
OPINIONS AND MODERATION Opinions expressed on UnmannedSpaceflight.com are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of UnmannedSpaceflight.com or The Planetary Society. The all-volunteer UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderation team is wholly independent of The Planetary Society. The Planetary Society has no influence over decisions made by the UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderators. |
SUPPORT THE FORUM Unmannedspaceflight.com is funded by the Planetary Society. Please consider supporting our work and many other projects by donating to the Society or becoming a member. |