Hubble finds additional evidence of water vapor plumes on Europa

The existence of plumes would make studying the moon's interior ocean easier.

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[jason8957]

Statistical[/url]":2xcr5f24]

SiberX[/url]":2xcr5f24]Whenever discussion about probes on Europa comes up, I wonder about the feasibility of landing a two-part probe consisting of:

-A surface module, that does the initial landing and contains high-gain antennas to communicate with earth
-A submersible/penetrator module, heated and powered by RTGs to keep it at 70-80 celsius
-A long (5-10km) spool of fibre optic cable, held inside the sub and spooled out as the probe slowly melts its way through the icy crust

The whole assembly lands, and then the lander just plunks the warm sub module on the ice and lets it work its way down to the subsurface ocean. A few years later, there's a few km (hopefully they find a thin part of the crust to make it more manageable) of communication cable connecting the surface with the ocean, and your sub could then send data back to the surface for transmission. If you were clever enough you could even detatch the communication tether and roam deeper (returning to upload gathered data) but simply dangling under the tether cable might provide lots of useful data already.

Is such a plan possible? Is a long enough (very thin) fibre optic infeasibly large? Do the ice sheets move too much to prevent cable breakage? Do RTGs not put out enough heat to melt through the ice?

RTGs currently put out enough heat to melt the ice. The nice thing about RTG is that is you need more heat you just bring more nuclear material. You can find the right amount to melt a path for your probe in a reasonable amount of time. In essence you would pump water past a heat exchanger and direct it downward where it melts more ice. The probe would descend in a bubble of self created liquid water. The formerly liquid water above the probe would eventually freeze solid. So you would have a slowly descending bubble of liquid water in an otherwise solid block of ice.

Communication is the big challenge. Any trailing fiber optic cable would be in solid ice very quickly. The ice does move sometimes meters a day so designing a cable and deployment system that would allow your "landline" to survive would be a challenge.

Even if you solved communication we are probably at least two decades away from any such mission. NASA funding and the lack of detailed information on Europa being the major obstacles.

That and we are dropping a dirty bomb on a place we think might have life.

 

[jason8957]

Statistical[/url]":2qnzxb0y]

jason8957[/url]":2qnzxb0y]

Statistical[/url]":2qnzxb0y]

SiberX[/url]":2qnzxb0y]Whenever discussion about probes on Europa comes up, I wonder about the feasibility of landing a two-part probe consisting of:

-A surface module, that does the initial landing and contains high-gain antennas to communicate with earth
-A submersible/penetrator module, heated and powered by RTGs to keep it at 70-80 celsius
-A long (5-10km) spool of fibre optic cable, held inside the sub and spooled out as the probe slowly melts its way through the icy crust

The whole assembly lands, and then the lander just plunks the warm sub module on the ice and lets it work its way down to the subsurface ocean. A few years later, there's a few km (hopefully they find a thin part of the crust to make it more manageable) of communication cable connecting the surface with the ocean, and your sub could then send data back to the surface for transmission. If you were clever enough you could even detatch the communication tether and roam deeper (returning to upload gathered data) but simply dangling under the tether cable might provide lots of useful data already.

Is such a plan possible? Is a long enough (very thin) fibre optic infeasibly large? Do the ice sheets move too much to prevent cable breakage? Do RTGs not put out enough heat to melt through the ice?

RTGs currently put out enough heat to melt the ice. The nice thing about RTG is that is you need more heat you just bring more nuclear material. You can find the right amount to melt a path for your probe in a reasonable amount of time. In essence you would pump water past a heat exchanger and direct it downward where it melts more ice. The probe would descend in a bubble of self created liquid water. The formerly liquid water above the probe would eventually freeze solid. So you would have a slowly descending bubble of liquid water in an otherwise solid block of ice.

Communication is the big challenge. Any trailing fiber optic cable would be in solid ice very quickly. The ice does move sometimes meters a day so designing a cable and deployment system that would allow your "landline" to survive would be a challenge.

Even if you solved communication we are probably at least two decades away from any such mission. NASA funding and the lack of detailed information on Europa being the major obstacles.

That and we are dropping a dirty bomb on a place we think might have life.

RTGs aren't really that harmful unless you damage them and it takes a lot to damage them. We dropped one into the ocean from orbital velocities (was carried aboard Apollo13) and it was expected to remain intact.

BTW: 3.9 kg of plutonium slightly used available. Possible collector's item as it orbited the moon. Must pick up at Tonga Trench. Bring own transportation.

I was also thinking that even if the material remains contained for the useful life of the mission, it will also have to remain contained for as long as the fuel is radioactive and dangerous. I don't know how long that is, but will the device be able to contain the radioactive material in an unpredictable alien environment that long?