One Astronomer's Noise

So I’ve been called to task (thanks, WoodEngineer!) to cover some of the recent developments on the joint NASA/ESA proposed missions to the outer solar system. In the linked press releases, it is announced that the two space agencies will team up to explore some of the most tantalizing targets in the outer solar system: Europa, whose icy surfcace may be covering a rich, liquid water ocean, and Titan, home to liquid methane and a thick atmosphere. Europa will be explored by a team of two orbiters, along with its Jovian satellite siblings (Ganymede, Callisto, and Io) and Titan will be explored by an orbiter, and lander, and a research balloon. Whoa. We’re taking advantage of the thick atmosphere of Titan to send a research balloon which will pierce through the clouds and yet be safely above the putative methane oceans!

Europa, Titan, and the other “big shot” moons of the outer solar system may be dwarfed by their parent planets, but they are really worlds in their own right. In fact, if placed in the inner solar system, assuming they don’t lose their volatiles like ice, their sizes would not be too different from the inner planets, and they would fit right in as planets. In fact, Ganymede and Titan are larger than the planet Mercury! We, as water-based life forms, like to explore these worlds that may harbor water and maybe, tanatalizingly, life? Or, as in the case of Titan, not life, but a strange weather process involving not clouds and oceans of water, but of organic molecules.

You can find a lot more information on Europa in the well-timed Discovery Space Wide Angle feature which was released last week. Also, I have to second Dave Mosher’s nomination of the name Clarke for the Europa mission, although I had held out hope that could save that name for a Europa lander. I suppose that a more detailed study of Europa will be necessary before it is determined how far through Europa’s crust we can drill to find water. But still, a closer look is very exciting to me since I was also fascinated by Arthur C. Clarke’s exploration of Europa in 2010: Odyssey Two, and a mission to Europa was one thing that my astronomy professor from my undergraduate institution really wanted to see happen in his lifetime. We’re going to Europa, Doc E!

Lest I forget, the Carnival of Space #91 is up!

P.S. Whoops! Almost forgot… Ian O’Neill of Astroengine has interviewed Richard Greenberg, a scientist at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, about the possibilities of life in Europa’s subsurface oceans. The interview will be aired on Astroengine Live, which can be heard over the web at 7pm EST on Wednesday night. And if, like me, you have a bellydance class at that exact time, you can catch the archived shows on iTunes!