Senior scientist argues that we should bypass Europa for Enceladus | Hacker News Reader

Senior scientist argues that we should bypass Europa for Enceladus

arstechnica.com

45 pointsjchanimal23 comments

I'm still pretty blown away by the probe landing on Titan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNiO1b0ewy0 - what an amazing and wonderful endeavor.

It's so frustrating that we can't dedicate more resources to stuff like this than garbage like "the wall".

Because:

A, constituents are not interested.

B, the politicians that OK it would be long out of office before the results are in.

What you get when you base your politics on marketing and homo economicus...

Interestingly, it is a conservative Republican from Texas [1] that is championing the exploration of Europa. I wonder if he could be convinced to go to Enceladus instead.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/03/inside-nasas-daring-...

Yes. The GP comment is somewhat glib. Culbertson is following Europa exploration closely. He passed out a press release on a possible Europa plume recently: https://mobile.twitter.com/spcplcyonline/status/994323304453...

Looking into things it seems the guy represent Huston and surrounding areas...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Culberson

This and deliberately crashing Cassini into Saturn are two of my top favorites. Then there is Voyager and the golden records on it.

Honestly, we should be focusing on Ganymede.

It is also covered in ice with an ocean. Europa looks good but it is bombarded by direct radiation from Jupiter. Enceladus also looks good but it has really low gravity, and is farther from earth. Also, radiation again.

Ganymede has it's own magnetic field, to help bounce some of those ionizing particles, and is more distant from Jupiter. It's gravity is better than the moons.

Obviously I wish we could go to all three, but Ganymede is clearly the best choice imho.

> Europa looks good but it is bombarded by direct radiation from Jupiter.

A few dozen meters below surface the radiation levels ought to be nil. And the surface is not interesting anyway.

Instrumentation design for a probe that has to survive the radiation on the surface would be an awesome job. Given the weight budget, it could be a very hard engineering problem.

All of the probes that have gone to Jupiter have had that same hard engineering problem, and we've yet to lose much science because of it.

Partly radiation shielding, partly planning orbits to avoid it as much as possible. If you’re on a moon you don’t have the luxury of avoiding anything.

OTOH, if you're on a moon then you can use the moon itself as a shield. Just burrow below the surface. Most natural sources cannot penetrate more than a few meters (dozens of meters at most) through rock and/or ice.

The liquid ocean of Ganymede is separated from the rocky core by a thick layer of ice which makes it less likely that there is the necessary chemistry to support life.

Europa is tidally locked so radiation on far side should be same as on Callisto

TLDR: we've detected organic molecules in the water jets that come from the surface of the moon.

of _a_ moon, Saturn's moon Enceladus

I read it as "of the moon in the article"

Organic molecules with a molecular weight > 200 [1]. In addition, there is strong evidence of hydrothermal vents [2]. Enceladus is one of the most fascinating stories in all of science right now. I think Ms. Porco has a point. Enceladus may look more promising, if we are to discover extraterrestrial life.

[1] https://www.swri.org/press-release/evidence-complex-organic-...

[2] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6334/132

We have too many problems on Earth, so we shouldn't put anytime in expressing our imperial tendencies else where in the solar system until we can feed all of our children and stop POC from dying at the hands of police.

Have you SEEN human history? Human beings are not good at what you propose. Human society tends towards domination and enslavement over caring for each other. Half the people believe there's an invisible Man in the sky that grants you wishes if you pray hard enough and that their invisible Man is the only correct invisible man. We're primitive and we have nuclear weapons.

I think we need an alternative.to this planet as fast as possible.

Amazing explanation. Even if we found a way to feed any hungry person and any other person would earn $1000 for every poor person fed, a considerable percentage of the population would oppose it.

We will never be able to come to an accord on something and it's probably a good thing though.

I wish much more money were spent on space exploration so I could enjoy the findings in my lifetime, even though it might not affect me more than a tv show.

Sounds reasonable. So, what's the timeline on solving those problems? Ten years? Fifteen?

[1] https://xkcd.com/1232/

You reminded me of this gem: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/08/why-explore-space.html

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