Aliens Of The Deep - Mission To Europa
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Stumble ThisThe most memorable scene from James Cameron's Aliens of the Deep for me, describes a potential unmanned NASA exploration mission to Europa for the sole purpose of discovering what's underneath it's ice.
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james cameron,aliens of the deep,europa,jupiter,probe,nuclear,ocean,submarine Aliens Of The Deep - Mission To Europa
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Icy_Moons_Orbiter
And about contaminating another planet. You should know that the Jupiter system already has an extraordinarily intense radiation due to the strong magnetic field. Furthermore a reactor might help in heating and sterilizing the probe to remove any Earth life, which might be a far bigger threat to the alien life if it's there.
I don't see the problem with a nuclear power plant. It's designed so that there's not too much fall-out if the rocket would fail during launch.
And about contaminating another planet. You should know that the Jupiter system already has an extraordinarily intense radiation due to the strong magnetic field. Furthermore a reactor might help in heating and sterilizing the probe to remove any Earth life, which might be a far bigger threat to the alien life if it's there.
Hmmn good point regarding Jupiter's radiation belt, but there must still be balance which could potentially be disrupted. And I'd think the Thermosphere would do a decent job of burning up and sterilising that earth junk no?
I also very much doubt a probe, even if it leaks, would damage the environment much, only very locally. Europa should have a vast ocean and Uranium doesn't dissolve that quickly. The oceans of Europa might contain some uranium already, just like Earth's ocean at 3 parts per billion (or 10^13 kg (2 × 10^13 lb) total). That's 10 with 13 zeroes.
On the pollution side, we're still debating whether or not our own massive industrial machine is capable of making a dent in our own planet's environment, so what's one tiny probe on a moon like Europa?
...Or maybe the meltprobe could have a floatation device, and melt its way back up. Not sure it could make it all the way though, since liquid water would need some ice above it to form.
Crake for communication a wire would bring problems as you say. What they could do, is drop radio beacons at certain distances along the way down which could then relay the signal back up the surface. Or maybe use really longwave radio signals which might be able to penetrate the ice, though could only carry very low bandwidth.
^cybrbeast: I'm aware of the Drake Equation and it's implications on finding life within our own solar system. But when we're going specifically into places where we expect life to be possible, it's best to be too cautious than to assume there's nothing there, imo.
As for the likelihood of life under all that ice with no sunlight: If you watch the entire film, you see that they are in fact following a team of ocean explorers which take subs to the deepest parts man can survive in, in order to find new life, new species and understand how life survives there at all.
Europa is believed to have a molten core (which is the reason there's an ocean there at all, presumably), and is not just a big slab of ice. If that's the case, there might be Thermal Vents there, which allow life to exist on Earth in environments previously thought to be impossible.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is, let's go on a mission to see if there's life on Europa, while actually preparing to find said life, and not just doing it to mark a checkbox and say "Europa? Meh, been there, done that, got the T-Shirt".
Also a cable does not seem practical for communication. The ice may be more than a 100km thick. If the cable was only 1cm thick, which is quite thin for something in usch an extreme environment, you would already need 8m3 storage space, just for cable. That quickly becomes impractical.
And ULF-radio takes a lot of juice. Presumably the nuclear torpedo has an RTG at most.
Wire is the way to go, i think (and it seems there's a thin one in the video, although that may be my imagination).
Wire... or monoliths.