New Horizons at Europa Options

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

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

[ugordan]

As mentioned in the general NH at Jupiter thread, the first Europa image is down.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPho...s/022807_2.html

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Thanks, Gordan. Now we're getting somewhere!

[Bjorn Jonsson]

As mentioned in the general NH at Jupiter thread, the first Europa image is down.

http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPho...s/022807_2.html

And this is the viewing geometry:




I'm a bit frustrated that these are probably the best images we'll be seeing of the Galileans until the 2020s or later (except possibly for occasional images from huge future Earth-based telescopes). Having seen Cassini at Saturn as compared to Galileo at Jupiter makes me wish there was a 'Galileo 2' or something comparable.

[J.J.]

And this is the viewing geometry:




I'm a bit frustrated that these are probably the best images we'll be seeing of the Galileans until the 2020s or later (except possibly for occasional images from huge future Earth-based telescopes). Having seen Cassini at Saturn as compared to Galileo at Jupiter makes me wish there was a 'Galileo 2' or something comparable.

No guff.

I had the same kind of wistful thought when I saw that Europa image--the last close-up of my favorite satellite for a long time...

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

I'm a bit frustrated that these are probably the best images we'll be seeing of the Galileans until the 2020s or later (except possibly for occasional images from huge future Earth-based telescopes).

Probably. However, crude as they might be, I wonder if JunoCam or the imagers on NASA's proposed Solar Probe, which is baselined for a 2015 Jupiter gravity assist, might return something useful.

[SFJCody]

Probably. However, crude as they might be, I wonder if JunoCam or the imagers on NASA's proposed Solar Probe, which is baselined for a 2015 Jupiter gravity assist, might return something useful.

It's a longshot but maybe one of the emerging planetary spacecraft nations (India or China) will choose the Jupiter system as a target for a flagship. If not, perhaps Russia's newly reborn planetary program will take on a mission that goes further than Mars orbit.

[JRehling]

And this is the viewing geometry:

Thanks!

This is highly complementary with the geometry Voyager 1 had of Europa, eg:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00016

Maybe an aspiring astrocartographer could normalize the NH image's color to the Voyager one and then make a cylindrical map from this pair. Oh, to have free time!

[djellison]

Several "Oh woe is me" posts in this thread about how we'll all be dead before anything ever happens in space ever again have been deleted. Seriously guys, can you not keep anything on topic?

[JRehling]

The NH snap of Europa has similar geometry to the best full-disk image taken by Galileo:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00502

Most features visible in the NH image are visible here.

[mgrodzki]

i know there is much more to come when NH turns to face us, but are we expecting to learn anything from the europa images or will it largely be just a few new views in B&W? the images of Io so far seem pretty distant, and that works for Io as it is so active and plumes can be seen from quite a distance. but what might we discover at europa from such a quick pass?

[nprev]

Hmm...Actually, that's a very good question, MG.

Do we obtain any good silhouette views of Europa with low illumination angles at all from NH for a plume search? If there are any, I'm sure they'll be several orders of magnitude less spectacular than Io (or Enceladus, for that matter)...still definitely worth a look, though, if we can get it, particularly because NH is uniquely equipped to observe dim objects....

[stevesliva]

but what might we discover at europa from such a quick pass?

See slides 17-20 of the presentation here:
http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~spencer/nhjupitersupport/

Atmosphere and surface composition...

[mgrodzki]

that seems pretty meaty for a quick swing. most exciting is the remote possibility we may see some emissions at europa as we did at enceladus. that would be fantastic. if that did happen, wouldn’t that almost insure the odds of a flagship mission to europa?

[MarcF]

New Horizons is also supposed to map the intriguing arcuate depressions (or "crop circles") by making near terminator imaging. Will the resolution really be high enough to see them ?

Thinking about Europa pictures, I remember that I saw (a long time ago) some small pictures taken by Voyager 2 showing Europa being eclipsed by Jupiter's own shadow (a rare Voyager 2 "Kodak moment").
Has anybody an idea where these pictures could be found ?
(Sorry, this question is not directly linked to this thread).

Marc.