Enceladus article in today's Observer Options

[Seryddwr]

I don't post often - hopefully I'm not posting this in the wrong place, but starting a new thread here seemed appropriate. Just a heads-up to draw people's attention to a rather nifty and well-written article in today's Guardian (Observer):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul...dus-saturn-moon

I'm not overly optimistic about the timescale, especially as funding is getting pared down so much these days. Whn I was a kid, I looked forward to all the discoveries that would be made when I was older. Now I am older, I wonder, 'Will I still be alive when that happens?' Hopefully, the answer for this one - which will surely receive popular backing in the planetary sciences community (I hope so, anyway; I'm not part of it!) will be 'yes'. One thing that does give encouragement is that the technology to do a plume sample return is somewhat within our abilities at present (i.e. we have already managed to return particles gathered in space already). Getting them back from Saturn's vicinity - that one seems a little more difficult...


MOD NOTE: Remember, any & all discussion of this topic must conform to rule 1.3.

[vjkane]

Sample returns to Enceladus was considered in the Decadal Survey. You can read some background on the ideas here.

[Vultur]

I wonder if a 'lab to analyze them in space' (onboard instruments) would be feasible (rather than sample return)? -- much more mass, but OTOH you don't need the delta-v to get back from Saturn to Earth.

[vjkane]

I wonder if a 'lab to analyze them in space' (onboard instruments) would be feasible (rather than sample return)? -- much more mass, but OTOH you don't need the delta-v to get back from Saturn to Earth.

One abstract I read a while back (and you know when it's phrased that way, I don't remember which one ) said that on board instruments were highly unlikely to be able to have the sensitivity to find complex organic molecules indicative of pre- or current biotic activity. Sample too sparse and time to sample too short.

That said, a much more capable mass spectrometer than the one on Cassini and slower encounter speeds would provide much better measurements than we have now. The Journey to Titan and Enceladus (JET) Discovery proposal proposed doing just that. I don't know if the science was judge compelling or not, but even the science was judged compelling, I don't think NASA would have selected both JET and the TiME lake lander as candidate missions.

In theory, an Enceladus sample return mission could also do all the science of JET, too, (which also included extensive thermal imaging of Titan and Enceladus) but just collecting samples within a Discovery budget would be quite a challenge.