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NASA Space

NASA Spacecraft Buzzes Jupiter Moon Europa, Closest in Years (go.com) 23

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
NASA's Juno spacecraft has made the closest approach to Jupiter's tantalizing, icy moon Europa in more than 20 years. From a report: Juno on Thursday zipped within 222 miles (357 kilometers) of Europa, thought to have an ocean flowing beneath its thick frozen crust, raising the possibility of underwater life. Scientists hope to get lucky and observe possible water plumes shooting from the surface of Europa, close in size to Earth's moon. "We have to be at the right place at just the right time, but if we are so fortunate, it's a home run for sure," Juno's chief scientist, Scott Bolton of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement. John Bordi, deputy mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, expected the spacecraft to go "screaming by pretty fast," with a relative velocity of almost 15 miles per second (23.6 kilometers per second). Pictures should be available by Friday, NASA said. The latest observations will help NASA plan for its Europa Clipper mission, due to launch in 2024. The European Space Agency also plans close encounters with its Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or Juice, lifting off next year.
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NASA Spacecraft Buzzes Jupiter Moon Europa, Closest in Years More

NASA Spacecraft Buzzes Jupiter Moon Europa, Closest in Years

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  • They never watched 2000, A Space odyssey ?

    • Forget 2000. The one to watch is its sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

      "All these worlds are yours except Europa. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE. ".

  • Cue the Santana instrumental.

  • Are these the scientists that did not even want to put a camera on the probe?

  • Better than Mars? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TomGreenhaw ( 929233 ) on Thursday September 29, 2022 @03:11PM (#62924637)
    I've often wondered why Mars is the next best place for humans. While I agree that having all our eggs in the Earth basket is a risk, there are a lot of options, e.g. the ocean floor and Antarctica as well as other places in the solar system.

    Mars has very low atmospheric pressure and little protection from cosmic radiation. Life on Mars would almost certainly be underground. Energy would almost certainly be solar, but that is much less than what we can get on earth so it would be very hard to scale. Matt Damon growing potatoes on Mars is very entertaining, but alas a fantasy.

    Europa on the other hand would be like living in the ocean. It is likely that geothermal energy from Jovian tidal forces would be plentiful. Europa's ocean would provide ample protection from radiation without a lot of digging. It would be much more straightforward to genetically engineer life to create an ecosystem in Europa that supports humans.

    Mars is of course much easier to travel to compared to Jupiter and beyond, but if you can get to Mars, Jupiter is likely possible as well. IMHO, a long term self sustaining extraterrestrial human presence is not practical until we have small fusion reactors although small modular fission reactors (like NuScale) might work
    • I am sure Kuato has an opinion on this

    • While I agree that having all our eggs in the Earth basket is a risk, there are a lot of options, e.g. the ocean floor and Antarctica as well as other places in the solar system.

      (1) "the ocean floor and Antarctica" and still in the same "Earth basket" and (b) not sure there are many other places in our solar system that are potentially more habitable than Mars -- or one of the frozen water moons, like Europa (as you mentioned). Mercury? Maybe the dark side (it's tidally-locked), but no atmosphere and little gravity; Venus? Maybe floating in the clouds, but the surface would be crushing and super inhospitable -- unless we could terraform it. All the gas planets are out. Variou

      • Mercury? Maybe the dark side (it's tidally-locked), but no atmosphere and little gravity

        Just for ref, Mercury is tidally locked into a 3:2 rotation, so once around the sun is 1.5 rotations of the planet, so each side alternates getting sunlight. It does have polar craters that don't get sunlight, though (like the moon).

        Extremely hard to get to, though. (Or, more technically accurate, it's extremely hard to stop when you get there, since it's downhill. Not hard to fly by without stopping.)

        Still, a fun place to think about.

        • Just for ref, Mercury is tidally locked into a 3:2 rotation, so once around the sun is 1.5 rotations of the planet, so each side alternates getting sunlight. It does have polar craters that don't get sunlight, though (like the moon).

          Thanks! I (obviously) didn't know those details.

          Or, more technically accurate, it's extremely hard to stop when you get there, ...

          Guessing the downside there to not stopping is pretty big. :-)

  • Did anyone else read that last sentence as the "EUROPAN Space Agency"?

  • A better article is this one [nasa.gov], with more information and a close photo.

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