Questions tagged [europa]
Questions regarding Europa, a moon of Jupiter with an orbital period of 3.55 days, which has a thin atmosphere primarily of oxygen and whose surface is made up of ice. It is the smallest of the four Galilean satellites of Jupiter.
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What is the minimum pressure of a purely CO₂ atmosphere on Europa that can retain enough heat for surface liquid water?
*Ignoring external factors such as Jupiter's magnetosphere blowing this new atmosphere off.
I'm not sure where to begin the maths for that
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Have the Europa Clipper's flybys and gravity assists of Jupiter's moons been pre-planned in detail?
"The Europa Clipper will orbit Jupiter and conduct 44 flybys of Europa, using gravity assists from Europa, Ganymede and Callisto to change its trajectory, allowing the spacecraft to return to a ...
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Melting probes in low pressure environment
The icy moons in our solar system Enceladus und Europa are very interesting targets for research because they sport deep oceans of liquid water under their thick shells of ice. But above that icy ...
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Why does Scott Manley say "the gravity of Europa is low enough that it's at the high end of what is possible in scuba with highly technical gear"?
Scott Manley's January 30, 2022 video Deep Space Radiation, Black Holes And Other Questions - Episode 14 discusses radiation levels and human survivability on Jovian satellites, and after ...
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Would it be possible to use a electrodynamic tether or similar device on or within Europa to generate electricity from Jupiter's magnetosphere?
I was reading about the idea of using an electrodynamic tether to generate electricity for satellites in Earth's orbit using the planet's magnetic field, generating electricity but gradually lowering ...
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Is the available imagery of Europa and Enceladus enough to develop surface missions there?
There are a few mission concepts under development to explore the surface (and subsurface) of Europa and Enceladus. This got me wondering - do the current (or soon to be obtained) surface maps of ...
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Why aren't there any robotic missions on Europa or Enceladus?
As per Space.com's Methane in plume of Saturn's moon Enceladus could be sign of alien life, studies suggest that Enceladus and Europa are the two most promising solar-system bodies on or in which to ...
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How is the presence of water detected on celestial bodies?
How is the presence of water detected on celestial bodies and how is its state, solid or liquid, determined? In a related question, are the same methods used to detect the presence of subsurface water,...
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Obtaining Europa's samples from Callisto. Possible to identify them? Worthwhile?
A lot has been discussed about the possibility of panspermia between Earth and Mars, and how compact systems such as Trappist-1 can be more prone to that.
Here on Earth, we have identified numerous ...
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Do penitentes predicted on Europa only apply to snow-covered areas and not bare ice?
This answer to What would ice-skating be like on Europa? cautions that it might be difficult because there may be penitentes which Wikipedia explains are snow formations. It links to EarthSky.org's ...
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What would ice-skating be like on Europa?
Jovian moon Europa's icy surface is pretty flat and let's say astronauts would wear ice skates attached to their spacesuits, what would ice-skating be like on Europa? Due to Europa's very low gravity (...
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Why are we interested in visiting the giant planets' icy moons?
I have noticed lately that future missions by NASA and ESA are targeted towards the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. They mention that they might be a possibility of life; the icy moons they are focusing ...
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Comparison of Titan to Europa
Why does Titan have an atmosphere denser than that of the Earth?
And why does Europa not have even a fraction of Titans atmosphere given that it is not that small as compared to Titan?
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Would it be possible to send a nuclear bomb to Europa and make a hole in the ice of more than 11 km?
The idea is to carry an atomic bomb in an orbiter and throw it towards the surface, would it be plausible?
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Is the far side of the tidally locked Europa moon safe from Jupiter's radiation?
From Wikipedia's Europa (moon); Orbit and rotation:
Europa orbits Jupiter in just over three and a half days, with an orbital radius of about 670,900 km....and is tidally locked to Jupiter, with ...
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How does not orbiting Europa maximize Clippers coverage of Europa for a given radiation dose?
According to the BBC's Nasa confirms ocean moon mission:
Europa's orbital path takes it deep into belts of intense radiation that surround the giant planet. This radiation fries spacecraft ...
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How is this video projection screen is used in tests of Europa Clipper's high gain antenna?
Phys.org's Europa Clipper high-gain antenna undergoes testing says:
The full-scale prototype antenna, which at 10 feet (3 meters) tall is the same height as a standard basketball hoop, is in the ...
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How unreachable are Jupiter's moons from Mars with the technology developed for going to Mars?
Jupiter's moons in their closest point to Mars (when Jupiter is closest to the sun) are like 7 times the distance between Earth and Mars, and in a return journey they will farther away. Is there any ...
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How to waterproof a rover?
What changes would be needed to a late model rover to enable it to function under water? What would prevent a rover from functioning under water as is?
related: https://astronomy.stackexchange.com/...
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Can a spaceship land on an icy body using retropropulsion? wouldn't the ice melt?
Can a spaceship, say Musk's BFR, actually land on the ice surface of Titan, or Europa, or Enceladus?
It seems to me that the hot exhaust gases would make the surface melt where the rocket is trying to ...
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Does Juno's UVS have any chance to spot Europa plumes?
JIRAM has recently been proven to be useful to monitor the volcanic activity on Io, from a considerable distance.
Europa Clipper will have an ultraviolet spectrograph which be pretty much a copy of ...
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Seismic effects resulting from tidal action on Ganymede and Europa
What kind of seismic activity is going to be generated by the tidal forces exerted on these two moon's ice sheets by Jupiter? Would it be a great enough differential in the ice sheets to preclude ...
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A certain way to blow up Europa, what is wrong with this suggestion?
To explore the sea under the ice in Europa, a probe with a nucleo-thermal tip has been suggested. Now as this probe melts its way downward, imagine we are pumping out the melted water. This should ...
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How much will Europa Clipper weigh?
I realize that NASA will have to change Europa Clipper's loadout based on whether they are launching on the SLS 1b or the Atlas 5 backup, but does anyone know what those two mission masses will be, ...
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Have there been any determinations of the water pressure in Europa's ocean just below the ice?
In this Astronomy SE answer to How can "Geysers" on Europa reach heights of 100km? there is discussion of the possible role of pressure at the top of Europa's ocean in the ability of the ...
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Would a Europa lander need radiation shielding similar to Juno?
Jupiter has a very intense radiation field, and thus spacecraft going to study it need heavy radiation shielding, such as Juno's radiation vault. This protects the delicate instruments and ...
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Do you need a "wire" on a Europa submarine to phone home?
In regards to Europa, what are the limitations regarding current data transmission technology.
Say we were to have an orbiter circling Jupiter, a lander on the surface of Europa and a "swimmer" [...
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Which side of Europa is which?
I understand that Europa is tidally locked* to Jupiter, so there's a Jovianmost longitude on one side and an anti-Jovian longitude on the other.
What I can't figure out is which side is which. ...
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I'm going to invade Europa, any international interferences that could stop me?
So I have some payload which is going to be sent to Jupiter's moon Europa.
While my contract partner who is shipping my payload didn't specify strictly enough what the expected achievements of our ...
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How likely is that Europa actually has no ice layer?
We have never landed on Europa, so the assumptions made on a possible ice layer on its surface are made on the data sent by various objects approaching it.
I'm sure these assumptions were accurately ...
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Why was Titan the first celestial body beyond Mars to be landed on?
If my memories are accurate, then there's only one celestial body beyond Mars, on which any man-made device was landed. Pictures made there are, in fact, quite popular among space fans.
But why Titan?...
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How would a robotic landing on an icy moon like Europa differ from landings on the Moon, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Titan, asteroids, comets?
Europa has 13½% of Earth's surface gravity and no atmosphere, so an optimal landing on Europa might be similar to a classic propulsive Lunar landing. But with up to an hour communication time lag, ...
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Why isn't the Europa mission more ambitious given the capacity of SLS?
SLS Block I will have about three and Block II five times more capacity in terms of payload mass to LEO, than any launcher which has been used for an interplanetary mission to date. But the mission ...
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Is there a way to achieve any kind of atmospheric flight on the moon Europa?
I've been searching all over the site and the internet, but I can't find something about it. Is there really no way for a plane, helicopter or quad-copter to fly on the moon Europa?
If it is possible,...
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Terminal velocity on Europa
What would be someone's terminal velocity based on the gravity of Europa (.1335G) but given the drag coefficient and air density of Earth? I have a protagonist who is currently plummeting about four ...
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Is it easier to land on Europa/Io than on Mars? What are the main considerations?
Europa orbits Jupiter at an average speed of 13.7 km/s. At the same time Jupiter orbits the Sun at a speed of 13.1 km/s. This means that Europa has an orbital speed relative to the Sun of 26.8 km/s ...
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Space travel using constant acceleration drive: Earth to Europa
Long story short: I'm writing sci-fi and taking my protagonist to Europa. He's got 2 weeks to one month to get there from Earth, give or take a few days. That sounds, of course, preposterous in this ...
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Would we be able to detect signs of life from the contents of a water plume?
Hubble has detected water vapor plumes shooting out of Europa
Wikipedia writes to say
it is predicted that the outer crust of solid ice is approximately 10–30 km (6–19 mi) thick
Getting to ...
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Could Jupiter's tidal forces be used to generate energy?
Let's say we have a colony on Europa (or any other Jovian moon really). Jupiter exerts a lot of tidal forces on its satellites. Could this force be used to generate energy for our colonists?
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What causes the cracks on Europa to form?
Europa, moon of Jupiter, has a number of large cracks, as seen below. The cracks appear to be associated with a brownish color, while the base surface appears to be a whitish color. What is the cause ...
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How would a probe land on Europa?
Say we send a craft to Europa which would then launch a probe to land on the surface of Europa. Let's say for the sake of this question that the probe weighs more or less like the Opportunity rover. ...
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