Most Interesting/Most Boring Objects in the Solar Options

[ngunn]

I'd like to join the 'interesting Venus' lobby. The atmosphere alone would be enough. It's by far the thickest one in our Solar System that we can study all the way from top to bottom. Surface exploration is challenging, but I've no doubt that new materials will some day (soon?) be devised and assembled into a fleet of rovers that are happy in that environment and can conduct detailed geological surveys over extended periods of time. It is a truly wonderful place, and right on our doorstep.

[JRehling]

The Venus quirk that blocks what would otherwise be the easiest means to explore it are the clouds. Venus would be a hell of a target for Earth-based telescopes, not to mention orbiter imagery, if it weren't for those darned clouds. As a result, if there are smoking plumes of volcanic origin, we can't see them. Whatever vis/IR spectroscopy could do in determining the mineralogy of landforms (a la TES and THEMIS at Mars) -- impossible from above the clouds. Visible-light sounding or star occultation studies of the lower atmosphere -- impossible. So even way up there (over here?) away from the heat, Venus is still tough.

By analogy to Titan, imagine losing all of the ISS/VIMS imagery, leaving you with RADAR and Huygens. That's roughly what we have at Venus. The only solution will be to have aerobots look at the surface beneath the clouds, and doing that on a global basis is inconceivable.

I guess eventually, we'll have some aerobots paint "stripes" of vis/IR mapping across long noodles of Venus's map, coloring in representative samples of the terrain types. Assuming such mapping has scientific and not just aesthetic purpose -- which the high temperature makes tough for IR.

Monitoring for smoking calderas is a tough problem if they erupt infrequently (think Mount St. Helens). Very tough problem. A one-time visit might be pointless, and monitoring a volcano from a permanent surface station with cameras aimed at the caldera would be a very pricey mission for possibly little return. I would suggest that if a seismographic network is ever put into place that landing VERY near a suspected active volcano or two would be a good idea.

[dvandorn]

Venus is an interesting place, yes. It is somewhat more difficult to get to than some other places -- you have to lose a lot of your solar orbital velocity to get there from Earth, it's not as simple as it sounds. And while it has very interesting processes, it takes a lot of power and sophistication to see through the very dense atmosphere to study the surface. So, it's by far not the easiest place in the Solar System to explore.

And there is another factor -- it's a place that humans will likely never visit. The conditions are just too extreme. There is something of a disinclination for people to get interested in places they can never, ever visit. As much as I enjoy unmanned space exploration, it's easier to get people's imaginations fired up if you can get them to visualize standing there, themselves. Seeing it with their own eyes. If that can never realistically happen, it's more difficult for most people to get enthusiastic about it.

Oh, I'm assuming you had your tongue fully in your cheek, hendric, with your little list there. Most of the items you list make Venus *more* difficult to explore than other Solar System bodies, not less...

-the other Doug

[volcanopele]

Why would you need to place the seismic network "VERY" close to a suspected active volcano. As a first shot, you send a network of seismometer spread widely across the surface of Venus. These should be capable of working for about a year or so. This shouldn't be terribly difficult as long as you KISS, and don't add any other gizmos to the lander except the seismometer. This network could be used to identify the regions that are experiencing the most geologic activity by looking for earthquake (or venusquake) swarms. On your next shot to Venus, you send an aerobot to investigate any prime targets identified by the seismic network.

[ngunn]

There is something of a disinclination for people to get interested in places they can never, ever visit.

Whilst you make a lot of good points, this is one you've made before (in connection with Titan) and I have once again to register my disagreement. I think this assumption is terribly limiting, and underestimates 'people'. There are really very few places we can currently envisage visiting in the flesh. Meanwhile the universe teems with exotic worlds that are at last coming into our field of view. They are already making headline news and this can only continue as the pace of revelation accelerates.

Even if one accepts your premise I don't think it applies particularly forcefully to Venus. It is entirely possible to imagine being on board a Venus orbiter, or even in an aeroplane or airship at high altitude where the pressure and temperature are rather similar to Earth surface values.

[Decepticon]

[David]

Even if one accepts your premise I don't think it applies particularly forcefully to Venus. It is entirely possible to imagine being on board a Venus orbiter, or even in an aeroplane or airship at high altitude where the pressure and temperature are rather similar to Earth surface values.

In a sense, there's some value in not being able to land on (or take off from) Venus; it provides a good excuse for doing an interplanetary roundtrip without the added complexity of a landing; which is sort of necessary for the proof-of-concept that human interplanetary travel is possible at all -- which I gather is still debatable.

Not having done the math, I might require a little explanation as to why it would be harder to get from Earth to Venus than it is to get back to Earth from Mars; at first thought the complexities of round-trip travel would seem to be comparable, except that Mars is farther away and takes longer to get into favorable configurations.

[volcanopele]

Most

1.) Europa
5.) Iapetus
9.) Dione
10.) Mars

Least

1.) Io
9.) Io
10.) And don't forget Io!

Someone is getting a lump of coal in their stocking for Christmas...

[mchan]

Note Decepticon did not state Most WHAT / Least WHAT. It could be Most Interesting / Least Interesting, or it could be Most Boring / Least Boring.

[Decepticon]

[marsbug]

In rough order of personal preference:

Earth
Titan
Venus
Mars
Europa
Sol
Io
Enceladus
Saturn (Rings and wierd looking atmospheric features at its poles)
Jupiter
Luna
Yes I know its eleven, if that bothers any one take out mars for the reasons below.

Plus honourable mentions for:
Ceres
Pluto (and moons)
Vesta
Chiron
Just because ther could be interesting and no ones gone to look yet!

Most overrated? Paradoxically I'm gonna have to say mars; yes its fascinating geologically and atmospherically, yes it may have habitatable spots, and I post under it, and, yes I put it in my top ten, but it sometimes gets so much attention I wonder if we haven't all got a bit too hung up over it.

[jasedm]

I've been thinking about this from the point of view of (a) the interest of remote sensing-these objects from a spacecraft or ( actually visiting them, and have plumped for the latter.

Therefore top ten most interesting:

1. Earth - for the sex, beer, music, food, beauty, variety, and not having to wear a space suit whilst enjoying these hedonistic pursuits
2. Titan - possible volcanism, lightning, methane-rapids/rain/flash-floods/lakes and seas
3. Io - for the spectacle of seeing Pele or Loki let rip from a safe distance - also the view of Jupiter from the surface must be awesome.
4. Mars - for the views! Standing on the edge of Valles Marineris, or seeing the other huge volcanoes from the summit of olympus mons
5. Saturn - very dynamic atmosphere, with lightning and hugely powerful winds. The rings in close-up would be phenomenal
6. Europa - for the remote chance of life existing there, a form of possibly ongoing plate tectonics, and again Jupiter would fill the sky
5. Miranda - to run off the top of the 20km high Verona Rupes icecliffs and fall (very slowly) to the bottom. That crazy terrain
7. Triton - on-going spectacular volcanism, possible triton-quakes and again, the views of Neptune would be spectacular
8. Enceladus - ok it has cryo-volcanism, so it is intrinsically interesting but then again, it's not that much bigger than a golf ball.....
9. Venus - probably dead for a while, and a tad inhospitable but geologically a very interesting place to spend some time I reckon
10. Daphnis - probably the best view in the solar system (assuming the rotation is stable and you could stay attached)

Honourable mention: Luna - earth meteorite prospecting and other geology has some surprises in store I reckon

Top ten most boring:

1. Phoebe - a collection of impact craters held together by very ancient dust
2. Rhea - yes, I concur with most - the solar systems 21st largest object and second most dull
3. Mimas - were it not for Herschel.......
4. Proteus - ditto Phoebe above
5. Larissa - etc etc
6. Mercury - am hoping that Messenger will change my mind - possible comet ice at the poles though.....interesting
7. Deimos - great views but trumped by Phobos
8. Callisto - The largest solar system object to show no signs of anything other than impact gardening
9. Umbriel - Uranus' version of Callisto - two bright craters relieve the utter monotony
10. Hyperion - craters on craters, but dark stuff in the bottom of some, and how weird does this moon look?

Honourable mention: Titania - larger than Rhea....slightly more interesting

[Guest_Geographer_*]

The moons of the outer planets fascinate me the most. Granted most of them are uninterested hunks of rock, but there is such diversity too! I guess Europa is the most intriguing with its hypothesized underground liquid water ocean kept war by tidal forces feeding steam vents.

[Phil Stooke]

Just to correct a surprisingly common misconception...

The "20km high Verona Rupes icecliffs " are not vertical, they are talus slopes at the angle of repose. You would skid and bounce down them, not bungee.

The error arose when the images were first released, with the 'cliff' vertical in the image. But the whole image is tilted with respect to the horizontal.

Phil

[Stu]

Most interesting object in the solar system: Mars - come on... volcanoes the size of France, a canyon longer than the Atlantic is wide, endless plains of ochre dust, lavendar dawn and dusk skies, life hiding under the rocks or just beneath the surface, destined to be Mankind's next home in space. I rest my case.

Most boring object in the solar system: Howard, off the Halifax adverts. No contest.