New Horizons at Europa |
New Horizons at Europa |
Guest_AlexBlackwell_* |
Feb 27 2007, 09:31 PM
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Guests |
Time to start a thread about a far more interesting jovian moon
Passing probe to study 'crop circles' on Europa 17:38 27 February 2007 NewScientist.com news service Kelly Young |
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Mar 4 2007, 03:40 PM
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
Actually, IIRC, the Io torus, Saturn's E-ring, and Titan's hydrogen torus were all discovered from ground-based observations back in the 70s. Io's position along its orbit was found to have an effect on Jupiter's radio emissions, and this was the first hint that something was going on there. The E-ring was found visually, and I think that Titan's hydrogen was also found via radio astronomy, but don't know the details.
The interesting implication here is that planetary satellites in equatorial orbits with 'outgassing' surfaces tend to leave rather obvious signatures/artifacts along their orbits. (I wouldn't expect to see anything in Triton's orbit; Triton itself only stays there out of sheer inertia!) This probably does not bode well for any significant surface activity on Europa. -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Mar 4 2007, 05:26 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 78 Joined: 29-December 05 Member No.: 623 |
The interesting implication here is that planetary satellites in equatorial orbits with 'outgassing' surfaces tend to leave rather obvious signatures/artifacts along their orbits. This probably does not bode well for any significant surface activity on Europa. Speak not too soon--and credit Cassini researchers with the discovery: Energetic neutral atoms from a trans-Europa gas torus at Jupiter B. H. Mauk, D. G. Mitchell, S. M. Krimigis, E. C. Roelof and C. P. Paranicas Nature 421, 920-922 (27 February 2003) Here we report the analysis of ... a torus of emission residing just outside the orbit of Jupiter's satellite Europa. The trans-Europa component shows that, unexpectedly, Europa generates a gas cloud comparable in gas content to that associated with the volcanic moon Io. The quantity of gas found indicates that Europa has a much greater impact than hitherto believed on the structure of, and the energy flow within, Jupiter's magnetosphere. There is a nice summary of this article here: Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab Researchers Discover Massive Gas Cloud Around Jupiter http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressrele...2003/030227.htm |
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