Galileo's Final Blaze of Glory

EccentricAnomaly writes: "CNN reports that the Galileo spacecraft is about to perform its last flyby of Io. Galileo will skim a mere 100 km above Io to enter a trajectory that crashes into Jupiter in 2003. This is to avoid the spacecraft running out of fuel and accidentally crashing into Europa which might contaminate it with any bacteria spores on Galileo. This is a real concern - Apollo 12 found bacteria on Surveyor 3 that survived two and a half years on the moon."

Comments

Pollution

[joebp]

It's extremely good that they're being so careful and sensitive with other planets/their moons. The worst thing we could do is pollute everywhere, limiting our options when we finally give up raping this planet.

I just wish mankind could be this careful with its native planet.

(mod me as you will...)

Re:Pollution

[wsloand]

It's extremely good that they're being so careful and sensitive with other planets

I have to wonder if you're joking here. So instead of polluting Europa, we pollute Jupiter. Sure there is no possibility of life as we know it, but who is to say if there is some different form of life on Jupiter?

People never think of all the possibilities.

Re:Pollution

[notcarlos]

Nonsense! At some point, Jupiter's atmosphere will be so dense that Galileo is crushed many times over, until the atoms themselves become one with the near-heliodal soup that is our fifth planet. Then shall the firmament rejoyce!

(Singing) Io hymen hymnaee io, Io hymen hymnaee!

Re:Pollution

[lohen]

Yes, but if Jupiter did hold life, it would quite likely be accustomed to objects falling out of the sky, due to the pounding which Jupiter regularly takes (handily protecting us in the process). True, these would typically not have a nuclear reactor on board, but the main destructive energy is simply derived from the heat released upon entry into the atmosphere. Which is a fairly odd word to use about Jupiter anyway, on the basis that, as we all know, it's basically a giant gaseous pressure cooker.

Europan life might well not be so durable in such a regard as Jupiter's life might be. And furthermore, Earth bacteria have a much higher chance of surviving & growing on Europa _if_ they survived the journey and the crash than they do on Jupiter, based on our current rather limited knowledge. The actual probability of a highly specialised Earth hyperthermophile (organism which enjoys high temperatures) and hyperbarophile (organism which enjoys high pressure) making it all the way there is negligible.

Re:Pollution

[AB3A]

.So instead of polluting Europa, we pollute Jupiter. Sure there is no possibility of life as we know it, but who is to say if there is some different form of life on Jupiter?

Reality check: Io doesn't have nearly the atmospheric drag that Jupiter has. The probe would burn up in Jupiter's atmosphere, though maybe not in Io's atmosphere, such as it is.

So I leave you with this not-so-academic question: What happens when you heat up earthly critters to temperatures that melt metals? Could you achieve that in orbit over Io?

Re:Pollution

[wsloand]

Reality check: Io doesn't have nearly the atmospheric drag that Jupiter has. The probe would burn up in Jupiter's atmosphere, though maybe not in Io's atmosphere, such as it is.

Additional reality check. You are again assuming life as we know it. What if life on Jupiter exists in the very upper atmosphere. Another note on the subject is that Jupiter has no distinct atmosphere and solid surface, it is just gasses that slowly get more and more compressed. So there really could be no life as we know it on Jupiter which makes it more interesting than the "normal life" that could be on Europa to me.

The poster immediately previous to you made a good point that this will not be noticably different than any other meteor striking Jupiter's surface. That I can buy.

Re:Pollution

[UnhandledException]

Yeah, but I think the important thing here is that EARTH bacteria couldn't survive there, whereas they might survive on Europa.

Re:Pollution

[Magius_AR]

It's extremely good that they're being so careful and sensitive with other planets/their moons.

Is this sarcasm? We're CRASHING SPACE GARBAGE INTO A PLANET!

Magius_AR

Re:Pollution

[rbruels]

Bravo, I agree completely -- but why was this modded "Funny"? :P

Ryan

Think BIG

[mAsterdam]

"..This is to avoid the spacecraft running out of fuel and accidentally crashing into Europa which might contaminate it with any bacteria spores on Galileo. This is a real concern - Apollo 12 found bacteria on Surveyor 3 that survived two and a half years on the moon." Let me get this straight. They risk contaminating Jupiter in order to prevent contaminating Europa?
I'm speechless.

Re:Think BIG

[dharcombe]

Well, yes.

But they know Jupiter has an atmosphere which should burn up the probe and destroy anything on it.

A little bit risky, but if your choices are Europa or Jupiter, and you can't avoid hitting anything, you have to go with the main chance.

Re:Think BIG

[Tipsy McStagger]

We were warned not to touch Europa.

Re:Think BIG

[arsaspe]

Jupiter has no solid surface, It is a gas giant. Technicaly it is a Brown Dwarf- which is a star that never got large enough to start a fusion chain reaction. It is extremely unlikely that any sentient life could form there, especialy considering the gravity is strong enough to compress the hydrogen atmosphere into a liquid metal at it's core, which produces the strongest magnetic field in the solar system.

Europa, on the other hand, has everything life needs to flourish. Water- most likely in a huge ocean under the surface ice, and energy- mainly geothermic energy produced by the mammoth gravitational force exerted by jupiter (the same ones that make io the most volcanicly active body in the solar system), as well as a phenominal amount of magnetic flux produced by hydrogens metalic core.

Now if you ask me, I'd prefer to burn a probe up in a dead star then a moon which could possibly support life.

Re:Think BIG

[Tim C]

More importantly, there are plans being drawn up to send probes to Europa to look for eveidence of life, as it's one of the most likely candidates in the solar system.

If there is any bacteria on the galileo probe, then crashing it on Europa risks contaminating any samples that we do take, thus giving false positives. Not cool given the amount of time, effort and money that will go into such a mission. (Don't even get me started on what a blow it would be for science...)

Cheers,

Tim

Re:Think BIG

[prgammans]

Ok, but how do you or NASA stop these probes which are beeing sent to Europa from contaminating the sample?

Is the probe sterile, Do we boil it for five minutes before lanch :)

Re:Think BIG

[archen]

burning up the probe isn't even so much of an issue with Jupiter. Considering the intense gravitational field of the planet, it's pretty hard NOT to hit Jupiter. Aside from burning up, you can rest assured that whatever you toss into the planet, isn't going to come out - and will be sufficently crushed under a few billion pounds of pressure.

Re:Think BIG

[NoNeeeed]

Basically, yes.

The idea is that some form of lander will land on Europa. Then either it, or a smaller probe carried by it will burrow down throught the ice and into the ocean below.

One approach to this may be for a bullet shaped probe to melt the ice. In the process of heating the ice the surface of the probe would be heated so high as to sterilise it. The melt water would then freeze behind the probe, sealing the surface again. The probe could then just burrow back up when it has finished.

I beleive that there is a group who plan to use the same idea to get a probe into a lake in the arctic/antarctic (can't remember which) which has ben sealed by ice for thousands of years to see what kind of life is down there.

This is only one possibility, and any mission is probably a long time in the future so who knows what we might be able to do.

However it is done, they will have to find some way of making sure that the probe is absolutly sterile.

Paul

Re:Think BIG

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't tell that to the neohelical, nonaspirating
thumpboggers and the nineteen fringed jupiterian
fringehanging legpaddlers.

Re:Think BIG

[PhuCknuT]

Actually Jupiter isn't a brown dwarf. In a brown dwarf, there is enough mass for deuterium fusion to occur, which doesn't happen until around 12 times Jupiter's mass if I remember right. Jupiter is just a gas giant.

Re:Think BIG

[Anonymous Coward]

Hum...

So, basically, the problem is not the spreading of our bacteria to other planets (with whatever consequences it will have)... The problem would be money?

Is that what you are saying?

That's scary... :\

Re:Think BIG

[Anonymous Coward]

Antarctic.

Mods: Read the parent, this IS on topic.

Re:Think BIG

[Anonymous Coward]

All these worlds are yours except Europa...
Attempt no landings there...

Re:Think BIG

[Planetes]

Jupiter has no solid surface, It is a gas giant.Technicaly it is a Brown Dwarf- which is a star >that never got large enough to start a fusion chain reaction. It is extremely unlikely that any sentient life could form there, especialy
considering the gravity is strong enough to compress the hydrogen atmosphere into a liquid metal at it's core, which produces the strongest magnetic field in the solar system.

Interesting but no, Jupiter is not a brown drawf. It isn't large enough. A brown dwarf has the mass to sustain true convection. Jupiter doesn't have that much mass. If it did, we wouldn't see the banding on the planet but a 'surface' that looks more like the close ups of the sun where you see the little boiling bubbles.

Re:Think BIG

[s4ltyd0g]

IANAA but isn't a brown dwarf formed from a collapsed gas cloud? Jupiter was formed from material in our sun's accreation disk.

Re:Think BIG

[jonnythan]

Jupiter probably has a rocky core of 10-15 earth masses, according to NASA. Therefore, it is not simply a gas giant.

Secondly, it has 1/12th the mass necessary to become a brown dwarf, which can sustain true convection and deuterium fission (according to a couple other posts).

Liquid hydrogen at it's core? No.

Re:Think BIG

[generic]

So if bacteria were to infest Io it would look like a
giant cheeze ball?

Re:Think BIG

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, Jupiter is not massive enough to even classify a brown dwarf. It does radiate about twice as much energy as it recieves from the Sun, but that is dissipation of the gravitational energy trapped when the planet condensed. In order to be classified as a brown dwarf, Jupiter would have to be at least 12 times more massive to have achieved the deuterium fusion which classifies the young brown dwarf. It's just a big planet with 200km of atmosphere, a metallic hydrogen mantle, and a heavier core.

Re:Think BIG

[Anonymous Coward]

Europa's how fucking cold? What difference would it make if we smacked a whole beer cooler full of germs on it? They'd never get around to moving far enough to contaminate the whole thing. Sure, it's a good idea to avoid mucking up the place but use some sense people.

Re:Think BIG

[mumkin]

um. read the article at panspermia. they would survive, could potentially thrive, and regardless would confuse things.

Re:Think BIG

[Ariane 6]

That would be Lake Vostok, IIRC. The Russians have a research station on its shore. Kind of interesting, actually. The surface of the "lake" is a sheet of ice several hundred metres thick, however, unlike the rest of the surrounding ice, it's pretty smooth.

As the previous poster mentioned, seeing if there's anything alive in the water down there would be way cool.

Somebody has to say this

[Mik!tAAt]

Sorry, couldn't help myself:

All these worlds are yours - except Europa. Attempt no landings there.

(This should be all caps, damn the lameness filter!)

Re:Somebody has to say this

[Treeluvinhippy]

It's cool; the ultimatum was delivered in 2010. Check your calendar it's all good.

Re:Somebody has to say this

[susano_otter]

Sorry, I think you misspelled "All Europa are belong to us. Take off every zig there."

I know I should'nt be

[nzhavok]

but I always am surprised when I hear these stories of how long bacteria can survive outside of normal conditions. 31 months on the moon, 4800 years in peruvian pyramids, 11000 years in a dead mastodon (extinct mammal sort of like an elephant), and (mabye) 300 million years in coal!

Re:I know I should'nt be

[EDDY CURRENT]

hmm I'm normal and sometimes my colds lst for weeks.....

Re:I know I should'nt be

[YellowSubRoutine]

the're very simple organisms without processes that must keep running to keep them alive...

If the temperature drops, so does their activity, no damage taken...

Re:I know I should'nt be

[etceteral]

...very simple ... without processes that must keep running to keep them alive...

Sounds like a recipe for stability for a certain OS I've seen discussed around here :)

Re:I know I should'nt be

[xcomputer_man]

I know I risk being modded down for this, but gimme a break. Bacteria living for 300 million years? Under conditions of great heat and pressure? If it is true that living bacteria have been found in coal deposits that were (supposedly) formed over a period of 300 million years, then perhaps we should drop the mind stereotypes and actually consider that perhaps the coal was not actually formed over such a long time. I mean, the odds are astounding.

Re:I know I should'nt be

[UnhandledException]

"the odds are astounding." And which numbers are you talking about? People's ideas of unbelievable seem to be based on how far things are from human everyday. God didn't make the universe from a human perspective. I'll bet to him 4.5 billion years is a perfectly reasonable amount of time. But nothing in a human life lasts that long, so we have trouble believing it. From what I've read, dormant bacteria can last almost indefinitly. That combined with the evidence we have that coal does take millions of years to form, and we've got a really cool example of bacteria survivability. Don't get me wrong, I think we should always CONSIDER that we've got it wrong. (The biggest advances in science have been discovering something we've screwed up.) But all the evidence should be looked at without our preconceptions of what's normal.

Re:I know I should'nt be

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean temperature varations will cause a certain OS to crash? Sounds about right.

bacteria..

[CptnHarlock]

..has a lot more chances to survive on Europa which has Ice and presumably water. If you have read you Arthur C. Clarke you'd know that Jupiter is an "unlit" star so it's better suited to kill any leftover bacteria.

Re:bacteria..

[SevenTowers]

actually it lacks the mass to ignite, so it could never become a star. But it's atmosphere is mostly acid and the pressure on the surface is unberable (the planet is mostly gas, liquid gas because of the pressure).

Re:bacteria..

[mAsterdam]

..has a lot more chances to survive on Europa ... My point is: it is weighing risks against eachother, not eliminating one. What were the estimated chances of survival ont the moon before we learned they did? Thing is we just don't know what the real chances are. If I would have had to make this decision on my (our) very limited knowledge, I'ld decide the same, though.

Re:bacteria..

[Wonda]

That's not how i heard it :)

It has enough mass to ignite, just not enough to self-ignite. So it will burn just fine if we can find a way to heat it up.

Re:bacteria..

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that even using all the nuclear weapons on the earth it'll not ignite.

Re:bacteria..

[mAsterdam]

I guess that even using all the nuclear weapons on the earth it'll not ignite. - (Anonymous)

... but maybe some small bacteria will ignite something else.

Re:bacteria..

[onion2k]

Ok, I'm no physist.. but surely the 3 states of matter (solid, liquid, gas) would mean a 'liquid gas' is, well, a liquid?

Re:bacteria..

[mgblst]

Perhaps some sort of igniter could do this, like an unused probe sent hurtling in to the planet?

yeah, yeah, i know...

Re:bacteria..

[Richard_at_work]

what ever u do, make sure ure cigarettes are extinguished properly ;)

Re:bacteria..

[Hektor_Troy]

Well, considering the impact of Shoemaker-Levy 9, I think it's safe to assume, that we can't ignite Jupiter with our puny weapons.

Re:bacteria..

[SevenTowers]

It can ignite, but it cannot sustain a thermonuclear reaction, for it lacks the gravity to pack the atoms close enough that they fuse (that's rather simplified but it is the way stars convert hydrogen into helium).

Re:bacteria..

[Tim C]

I am (well, was) a Physicist, and yes, a "liquid gas" is a liquid, in the same way that a "gaseous solid" is a gas.

I assume the original poster meant that it's composed of substances that are gaseous at STP (standard temperature and pressure, 1 (Earth) atmosphere and 20C iirc), but that are mostly liquid due to the pressure they're under.

Good job I'd just finished my lunch before reading the "liquid gas" comment, or things could've gotten very messy :-)
(No offence intended)

Cheers,

Tim

Re:bacteria..

[fredrik70]

Well, we know that the other giant planets we've found in other solar systems have been up to (and more) 40 times as big as Jupiter, IIRC, and they haven't ignited either. So Jupiter seems to be quite far from a star

Re:bacteria..

[archen]

sort of. Jupiter is called a gas giant because it's.. made out of gas. The deeper you get into the atmosphere, the higher the pressure. Assumably there is probably a few miles between the gas layer (atmosphere), and the liquid layer (forced under pressure) which is in a gray area, that isn't really either.

Re:bacteria..

[Tony-A]

IIRC there is a critical point on liquid-gas phase. So it is possible to take a liquid, evaporate it with a change of state, then change it continuously without a change of state back to a liquid. At very high temperatures and pressures, if you come back one way, it was a liquid. If you come back a different way, it was a gas.

Re:bacteria..

[Codifex Maximus]

I think I saw it written somewhere that Jupiter gives off more light than hits it's surface. I'll have to find that article...

Anyway, maybe that's why there isn't more life in the cosmos - because the explorers were concerned about inadvertantly contaminating potential biospheres.

Re:bacteria..

[Anonymous Coward]

It has enough mass to ignite, just not enough to self-ignite. So it will burn just fine if we can find a way to heat it up.

Such as crashing a space probe into it? ;)

Re:bacteria..

[Amazing Quantum Man]

If a comet couldn't do it, I doubt that a dinky little space probe could...

I mean, come on... Galileo has a hell of a lot less mass, and a hell of a lot less velocity than a cubic mile of cosmic Hot Fudge Sundae!

Question!

[SevenTowers]

this is from "on the moon" article:

"... could life on this planet be descended from alien spores? ...Panspermia, the view that the seed of life is diffused throughout the universe, has been favored by a minority of thinkers since the Greek Anaxagoras in the 5th century BC. He, Arrhenius and Fred Hoyle may yet have the laugh on us doubters."

What I don't understand from this theory is how bacteria can survive the reentry pressure and especially heat that is generated! Or does the inside of a big enough asteroid stay cool? I wouldn't think so but does anybody have a definitive answer?

Re:Question!

[Dimwit]

What I don't understand from this theory is how bacteria can survive the reentry pressure and especially heat that is generated! Or does the inside of a big enough asteroid stay cool? I wouldn't think so but does anybody have a definitive answer?

Actually, you don't need to worry about heat. The massive amount of heat generated by the shuttle reentry and other such things has to reasons:

1) The shuttle is moving very, very fast relative to the atmosphere

2) The shuttle has a large ablative surface area

Assuming an assload of spores hits the Earth, a lot of them will be burned up (wrong trajectory, etc), but plenty of them will survive and simple drift down.

Re:Question!

[SevenTowers]

Yeah, but spores don't just travel in space (right?)! they are tied to some piece of rock that got blasted out of a planet or something. Plus another thing I've thought about : radiation! Don't astronauts wear several layers of protection so that they don't turn into bacon?

Anyway, if the rock theory is right, the bacteria spores should vaporize with the heat!

Re:Question!

[FlexAgain]

What I don't understand from this theory is how bacteria can survive the reentry pressure and especially heat that is generated! Or does the inside of a big enough asteroid stay cool? I wouldn't think so but does anybody have a definitive answer?

Essentially, objects in space are very cold, and don't spend very long passing through the atmosphere, quoting from an article at Science@Nasa:

Objects from space that enter Earth's atmosphere are -- like space itself -- very cold and they remain so even as they blaze a hot-looking trail toward the ground. "The outer layers are warmed by atmospheric friction, and little bits flake away as they descend," explains Yeomans. This is called ablation and it's a wonderful way to remove heat. (Some commercial heat shields use ablation to keep spacecraft cool when they re-enter Earth's atmosphere.) "Rocky asteroids are poor conductors of heat," Yeomans continued. "Their central regions remain cool even as the hot outer layers are ablated away."

Re:Question!

[T-Punkt]

> Or does the inside of a big enough asteroid stay cool?

Yes, it does. Small meteroits (i.e. those that don't create big craters) found on earth shortly after they came down are often covered with frost.

Quote from this article:
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/news/salisburyme te or.html

"I was suspicious immediately, because small meteorites should not start fires. This is a very common misconception. Meteors are hot only for a short time, when atmospheric drag heats them up in a relatively complicated process. However, they slow so rapidly during this time that they reach terminal velocity-- at most a couple of hundred kilometers per hour-- while still high up. This gives them plenty of time to cool during the several minutes it takes to fall the rest of the way to the ground. As a matter of fact, the inside of the meteorite is still as cold as the ambient temperature of space, so many of them are covered in frost when found!"

Re:Question!

[Goonie]

Don't astronauts wear several layers of protection so that they don't turn into bacon?

Yes, but humans aren't exactly the most radiation-tolerant creatures out there. Cockroaches are hundreds of times more radiation-tolerant than humans. Some bacteria are apparently considerably more radiation-tolerant again.

Re:Question!

[FlexAgain]

Plus another thing I've thought about : radiation! Don't astronauts wear several layers of protection so that they don't turn into bacon?

I think that this is largely for thermal control, and is nothing to do with ionizing radiation. ie its designed to keep the astronauts cool when in sunlight and warm when in the shade. I think there is an element of micrometeorite protection as well. The best solution to radiation (Gamma, X-Ray, high energy protons, whatever) is to get indoors (ie back inside the shuttle/IIS/andsoforth).

Re:Question!

[Raving]

What I personnaly don't understand there is that, either if this idea may explain the origin of life on Earth, its recursive nature doesn't shed any light on the origin of life, generally speaking.

Re:Question!

[Murphy(c)]

I think that this is largely for thermal control, and is nothing to do with ionizing radiation.

Well yes and no.
It's true that the current shuttle ISS spacesuits do not have any special radiation hardening, but that is mostly because at shuttle/ISS operating altitudes (~300Km) they are still protected by the earth's magnetic field.

Now on the moon it's not the same story. The suits they used were a lot more expensive, had the faceplates gold platted, etc...

On a side note, I also remember NASA finding out that tomato seeds resisted very well beeing exposed to space for a long time. Now, they are not saying that tomatos comes from mars, but it's a nice concept to throw around.

Murphy(c)

Re:Question!

[kindbud]

The interior of a meteorite that is large enough to survive re-entry, but small enough not to blast a crater, is untouched and unheated. An ablation crust forms that is only a millimeter or so thick. Bacterial spores can survive in the interior of the rock, untouched by the heat of re-entry.

Re:Question!

[Anonymous Coward]

Better question:

Where did said spores come from to begin with, if there were any?

Re:Question!

[sharkey]

could life on this planet be descended from alien spores?

Shh. Keep it quiet, but you're on the right track. There's a documentary you should see, called "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". The government managed to spin-doctor it before it came out, but it ain't sci-fi, it's HISTORY man.

Why the delay?

[SpinyManiac]

Why wait until next year for the fireworks?
Crash it now!

I hate delayed gratification.

Mars rocks will be send to earth in some years

[vmo]

Will these rocks bring mutated bacteria previously carried to Mars by NASA robots?

BarraPunto the /. in Spanish

Re:Mars rocks will be send to earth in some years

[billcopc]

Dude, haven't you ever seen 'Evolution' (the movie) ? Evil hyper-mutative blue-green goo will land in Texas, a bunch of redneck' military goons will swarm around it, and then we all die.

Re:Mars rocks will be send to earth in some years

[billcopc]

Oh fuck off! Overrated my ass. If you didn't like the movie, just move along. The only moderation that should apply to the above post is +1 Funny, or none at all.

Does this mean...

[Adrian Voinea]

...that Uranus is ours too? ;)

Moderators:this is a joke.

Re:Does this mean...

[rikkards]

What about my bases?
Sorry this is a really bad joke.

What would be really cool...

[arsaspe]

is if jupiters magnetic field created a wormhole to a few billion years ago, and we sent a probe through which had a small amount of bacteria in it. It then lands on earth, and over the next few billion years ends up evolving into Humans...... what a paradox. What came first? the human or the probe ;-). Oh dear... my heads starting to hurt.

(Ok Ok I know... but I've just finished watching the new Planet of the Apes movie)

Re:What would be really cool...

[Anonymous Coward]

That is what I would call, the ultimate recursive algorithm.

Punishment?

[imrdkl]

The 2010 accounts of the Europa landing differed in the book compared to the movie. In neither case was the Earth punished as a whole.

Therefore, I say lets try it just to see if we can get away with it. I mean, how bad could it hurt? What are they gonna do, send buzillions of monoliths to squash us too? In any case, an accidental crashlanding would not really qualify as an formal attempt, would it?

Re:Punishment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, if you read 2010 you'll find out that they wouldn't need to send a bazillion monoliths...1 monolith can exponentially replicate into as many as there are available resources. Also, if you read 3001 you find that even then we do not have the technology to understand how the monoliths work (although we have the tech to destroy one...), and if they decided to destroying the earth would be trivial.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

> suck my american cock faggot eurocunts

... And that, people, is why half the worlds population hates americans.

Well...

[LordOfYourPants]

Do you like Galileo? Do you enjoy open spaces? Do you like crafts? Then you'll love the Galileo spacecraft.

Crashes into Jupiter?

[tonywestonuk]

Hmm, I thought that Jupiter was just a Ball of Gas - 'Crashes' may be the wrong word!!, 'To be consumbed by' may be more appropiate!!

Re:Crashes into Jupiter?

[Anonymous Coward]

It may be... if you could spell it correctly.

Re:Crashes into Jupiter?

[mykdavies]

The site your link points to says "Jupiter probably has a core of rocky material amounting to something like 10 to 15 Earth-masses. Above the core lies the main bulk of the planet in the form of liquid metallic hydrogen."

Re:Crashes into Jupiter?

[Anonymous Coward]

I got consumbed once, but the police officer was sorry and gave me back my donut.

Re:Crashes into Jupiter?

[mad_clown]

However, the spacecraft will never ever make it to the core of Jupiter, because massive gravity, heat, and tidal forces will destroy it LONG before it gets deep enough to touch the core.

Amalthea

[imrdkl]

Before its final plunge, Galileo will make the first close flyby of Amalthea, a small, inner moon of Jupiter, in November 2002.

I found a fact sheet about this little rock. Looks kinda like the asteroid phobos. (We made a non-crash landing on phobos, but I never heard if they took off again)

Re:Amalthea

[SpinyManiac]

Phobos is one of Mars' moons.
The other one is Deimos.

Do you remember this from Doom?

Re:Amalthea

[ChristTrekker]

I thought all true geeks remembered this from Leather Goddesses of Phobos. Mac geeks might remember it from Marathon instead.

Re:Amalthea

[Anonymous Coward]

From the fact sheet:
Bright patches observed on the major slopes of Amalthea are green in color. The nature of the green color is unknown

Slopes of photosythesizing plants?

The fact sheet then quickly turns to talking about "intense radiation", "high dosages of energetic ions", "high-velocity micrometeorites"... as to dismiss the idea. But these aren't a problem for anything deep enough below the surface, like at the bottom of a sulfphur lake.

Imagine they choose to go to Amalthea last, they discover life, but the probe is out of gas. Great planning. I wonder if Cassini can use Saturn's gravity to sling back to Jupiter and explore Amalthea instead.

Re:Amalthea

[Wyatt Earp]

Some of us Mac geeks had Commodore 64s before we had Macs and we got in trouble from our Aunts for buying LGoP.

That was the only Infocom game that I actually passed and went back to do all the possible endings.

Re:Amalthea

[Tackhead]

> Before its final plunge, Galileo will make the first close flyby of Amalthea, a small, inner moon of Jupiter, in November 2002.

Which is why I'm kinda pissed-off about the report of the camera shutdown (from the CNN article -- "The mission budget does not cover any further pictures") after the Io flyby.

Does anyone know if CNN fscked up (perhaps by misinterpreting "we're shutting down the cameras until late 2002 because we're not flying near anything interesting for a while"), or if we've given up on imaging Amalthea altogether?

(Or, is there simply not enough time to send back both the data from the Amalthea approach and get Amalthea images before Jupiter impact, in which case the data takes priority. Or is the radiation field around Amalthea so intense that we couldn't get pictures even if we tried? Any space geeks know what's really going on?)

Re:Amalthea

[cam_macleod]

Phobos is a *moon* of Mars, actually. But they are very similar in appearance. I wish I could remember the name of the asteroid I think you're referring to...

Re:Amalthea

[Reziac]

Oh Phobos? So THAT explains the pink demons!!

Re:Amalthea

[mumkin]

the nasa press release doesn't say anything about the cameras being turned off:

This week, Galileo will make direct measurements of the charged particles and magnetic environment around Io. Also, its camera and instruments for infrared and thermal imaging have been programmed to make observations during the flyby. As much of the data as possible will be transmitted to Earth from the spacecraft's tape recorder in coming months, Theilig said.

and the only mention of Amalthea is this:

Before its final plunge, Galileo will make the first close flyby of Amalthea, a small, inner moon of Jupiter, in November 2002.

hmm. well, there's more data on Amalthea here, for those interested.

Re:Amalthea

[robin999]

Of cause!

Joseph of Aramalthea!

(Arrrrgh!)

Re:Amalthea

[Tackhead]

>The nasa press release [nasa.gov] doesn't say anything about the cameras being turned off:

Cool! (And thanks, dude!)

Until NASA says otherwise, I'm putting it down to "CNN fscked up again". Likely cause of fsckup - NASA guy says "These are the last Io pictures we're getting", and some journalism major who doesn't know the difference between Io, Jupiter, Amalthea, and his ass.

Yeah, I know Amalthea's just a captured asteroid, but I wanna know what all that red crap is. Probably Ionian sulfur, but if we can get an idea of how thick the layer is and a better idea of what it's made of, we can learn more about Io as well. Schweet!

yeah

[Treeluvinhippy]

my head hurt too after watching Marky Mark in that piece of crap.

Re:yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is Marky Mark? The movie I saw had Dirk Diggler in it :)

Instead...

[Kopretinka]

They'd rather contaminate the much larger world of Jupiter instead, right?

Re:Instead...

[bigjocker]

Well, i think is a little impossible to contaminate Jupiter. Even if we threw the whole earth in there things wouldn't be much different.

Remember, Jupiter is a ball of gas with an solid hidrogen nucleus, the probe would burn and become gas (and part of the planet) before it gets near the core. The temperatures there dont allow anything to live.

I dont recall the name of the mission, but i think the probe that was sent to Jupiter and entered the planet discovered that all the planet heat came from within the planet just befor it passed away.

Re:Instead...

[Kopretinka]

I don't think it's impossible, I agree though it is improbable. My original post was meant as funny rather than having any insight.

As to how I can imagine the bacteria surviving the entry of Galileo into Jupiter's atmosphere: I expect the craft to explode sometime after the entry (as usual in such situations). That's because the aircraft will not be heated uniformly. Therefore in some of the cooler parts the bacteria could well survive.

Then why should it not flourish in Jupiter's atmosphere or on its surface (unless that's too hot of course)?

Sure, again, I don't expect them to mutate and multiply so that we'd soon see their descendants, Jovians, attacking us anytime soon. 8-)

Re:Please

[Treeluvinhippy]

yes please

don't

You should read...

[Treeluvinhippy]

In any case, an accidental crashlanding would not really qualify as an formal attempt, would it?

1. 
   
   The answer to your question is in 2061 Odyssey 3.
   

Re:One

[Anonymous Coward]

Nine.

liquid gas?

[Max Merciless]

Isn't that an oxymoron?

Re:One

[Anonymous Coward]

Ten!!

Re:One

[Anonymous Coward]

Eleven.

Re:One

[Anonymous Coward]

Twelve.

Re:One

[Anonymous Coward]

Thirteen!

you dimwit

[Max Merciless]

Ermmm the namesake of this probe,Galileo, the father of modern astronomy and science was European... and I've heard American's are "smaller" on average than your red blooded European...

Re:you dimwit

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not how I've heard it. I heard it was Blacks, Latinos, American Whites, European Whites, and Asians in rank of penis size.

Earth First!

[wiredog]

We can strip mine the rest later...

Re:Earth First!

[Tiroth]

We're Earthlings, lets blow up Earth things!

Anyone else watch Mr. Show?

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Your going to stick eurocunts up my butt?

Not Phobos

[wiredog]

NASA landed NEAR on Eros

Re:Not Phobos

[imrdkl]

It's all greek to me!

Re:Not Phobos

[killmenow]

So...were there any Leather Goddesses on Eros?

Re:Not Phobos

[Rand Race]

Hera's iconic animal is the cow. Does that make her the leather goddess?

"lacks the mass to ignite..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Just a few kilograms short. Galileo should give it just enough...

Strange they survived on the moon...

[cca93014]

...when no-one ever went there.

Yeah, sure, analog electronics can be really powerful blah blah blah.

Re:Strange they survived on the moon...

[PhuCknuT]

I'm sick of this "We never went to the moon" bullshit. Every arguement for the moon landings being fake can be easily debunked by anyone with half a clue. Until someone shows real evidence that we haven't been there, unlike the real evidence that we HAVE, then shut up already.

Re:Strange they survived on the moon...

[cca93014]

Hehe. Easy dude. Deep breaths. Think of running water. Oh, maybe thats not right. I'm entitled to my opinion right? As for progressing from an earth-orbiting football to landing 3 men and a car on the old boy in 10 years, I just don't swallow it. Sorry.

Re:Strange they survived on the moon...

[SpinyManiac]

The rockets that got people into orbit are tiny, July 4th/November 5th style.

The Saturn V was enormous.
At least one still exists. Go and look at it, then tell me what YOU think it was used for.

Re:Strange they survived on the moon...

[cca93014]

Yeah - I have seen it.

Size doesn't matter.

I think it was used by Kennedy to fill with weed and get wasted. I hear he was giving Jackie blowbacks on that thing.

Re:Strange they survived on the moon...

[Shade, The]

Hey! You're right! How could we have progressed so much in 10 years?! Hell, I'll ignore the fact that it is purely a matter of the /size/ of the rocket and not the technology as to whether the moon could be reached, and that mathematics that show that the current Saturn 5 could reach the moon quite easily, and that technology in the 10 years from 1990-2000 saw the increase of computing power a hundredfold.

Ok, so I know you're a troll but think about it. The Saturn 5 exists, and if you don't believe that go up and touch it for yourself. Secondly, work out how much fuel it carries and whether it could get to the moon using a simple, direct path. And hey, it can! So maybe the moon landing isn't so unbelievable after all?

Re:Strange they survived on the moon...

[cca93014]

Look. They took a CAR! THEY'RE FUCKING WITH US MATE! They got cocky and decided to start taking the piss by taking a car. Right. Ok.

What one thing would you want to take with you to the uninhabited moon? THATS RIGHT. A
car would be just the ticket wouldn't it! Just what you need for, er, something or other.

I don't believe we could do it in 2002 and even get near the safety record that they 'achieved'.

Re:Strange they survived on the moon...

[Anonymous Coward]

How else are you going to quickly explore more than a 200 meter radius around the landing site?

Re:Strange they survived on the moon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. It's all a lie because they took a "car". I didn't realize that aluminum pipes and electric moters were so difficult to take with you. I'll assume Columbus never made the trip across the ocean, since he took months worth of food along that would never fit in the ships he supposedly used, and I doubt he could have done it with the technology he had anyways.

Please, find some real proof of your claims. There is mountains of evidense against you.

Re:Strange they survived on the moon...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why doesn't it matter? Do a few calculations sometime. Leave your hatred of Apollo and your fear of being wrong out of it. A Saturn V COULD have easily gotten to the moon. Just because you don't want it for whatever reason to doesn't make it any less possible.

In another comment you stated that we couldn't do it in 2002 with anywhere near their safety record. I guess 99 good shuttle launches for every Challenger is a lot worse than Apollo's right? Again, the facts differ from your unfounded and conspiracy-loving opinions.

Re:Strange they survived on the moon...

[PhuCknuT]

Yes! They did take a car! Try walking any reasonable distance in a spacesuit, 1/6 gravity or not. You'll see why they had good reason to bring a vehicle with them. It's not like they brought a chevy nova with them either. It wasn't much more than seats, wheels, and a motor. Why is it so hard to believe? We are just building a space station now, does that mean the ones that were up 20 years ago didn't exist? I mean, if it's so damn expensive that we keep having to cut the budget for it, how could they ever have done it back then!

Re:Strange they survived on the moon...

[cca93014]

Look I'm not some sort of conspiracy loving geek freakazoid. Shit, I'm English!

I just don't reckon, that's all. Just because I don't believe man landed on the moon doesn't mean I hate the United States. There's plenty of other reasons for that ;o)

Re:Strange they survived on the moon...

[cca93014]

Yeah yeah, and orbiting the earth is just as hard as flying to the moon, landing, dicking around for a while, taking off and getting back to Earth isn't it?

I don't hate Apollo. I don't fear being wrong. I fear your country and it's Enron-like, Bush Like, Cheney like, Rumsfeld like full of shitness.

Re:One

[Anonymous Coward]

1110 !!

Those damn Earthlings are at it again!

[sinistermidget]

From: drizva@spacedefence.jupiter
To: pcachvoorsnrt@spacedefense.mars

Dear colleague,

We have recently become aware that those naughty Earthlings from the third planet are planning yet another attack on the solar system.

As you are well aware, those nasty Earth people have sent a number of projectiles slamming into your peaceful planet over the last few solar cycles. These atacks have become more sophisticated and have been increasing in numbers over time.

It now appears that a nuclear armed projectile that has been spying on our planetary system will be sent plunging into our atmosphere. The consequences of this act are grave and disturbing to say the least.

As a result of this latest attack, please be advised that we will be redirecting several asteroids from the main artillary field located between our two planets past your peaceful red planet toward the third planet in order to send a firm message to the Earthlings.

You will be happy to learn that once we have obliterated the Earth, you will then have an unobscured view of Venus.

Best Regards,

Drizva

Re:Those damn Earthlings are at it again!

[MarkLR]

This would explain why so many Mars probes have been lost. Martian Space Defense is shooting them down before they land. All that stuff about forgetting to convert from Imperial to Metric is just a cover-up.

Re:Those damn Earthlings are at it again!

[Anonymous Coward]

defence? defense? make up your mind... you either can spell it or you cant, not both...

Re:Those damn Earthlings are at it again!

[sehryan]

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps he was using the Jupiter spelling vs the Mars spelling? DUH!

Lost images on weak tape.

[vanadium4761]

There was originally some sections of the data tape on the orbiter that had recorded some images never to be seen. JPL banned the use of that section of tape for fear of it breaking. I wonder if they will try and read those images back so we can see what we missed out on all those years ago. A PDF doc from JPL about the problems encountered on the trip to Jupiter, including the data tape can be found here.

Re:Lost images on weak tape.

[hmallett]

The link states that to get around the loss of the main antenna, "methods of compressing data onboard the spacecraft before they were sent to the ground were to be developed". Just think, if only they could have got Zeosync in to help them.

Re:Lost images on weak tape.

[BTWR]

I wonder how long it is, and I'm surprised it hasn't already happened on this board, that some conspiracy freak says that it wasn't "lost," but rather a coverup because it photographed an Io city or something!

Gonna get a "0" on this, because whether it's informative or funny, I always get "0"

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of Giotto?
It went to Halley's comet.

There have been others, but Americans like you (not the Americans with brains) don't know what's going on outside your own country.
Maybe that's why you send probes.

Oh come on.

[Gannoc]

Europa, on the other hand, has everything life needs to flourish. Water- most likely in a huge ocean under the surface ice, and energy- mainly geothermic energy produced by the mammoth gravitational force exerted by jupiter (the same ones that make io the most volcanicly active body in the solar system), as well as a phenominal amount of magnetic flux produced by hydrogens metalic core.

Ummm, yeah. All its missing is not-being-above negative 200 degrees, and the whole wildly fluctuating temperatures of being a moon. So, if a giant fetus shows up and blows up Jupiter, i'm sure he'll be grateful we didn't put spores on Europa.

Re:Oh come on.

[PhuCknuT]

The temperature below the surface is almost definitly NOT -200, nor does it wildly fluctuate. It is most likely heated from below by geothermal energy generated by tidal forces, and protected from radiation from above by the layer of surface ice.

Re:Oh come on.

[Anonymous Coward]

A giant fetus comes and blows up Jupiter. You certainly did NOT understand that movie. The book is short, give it a read.

Re:Oh come on.

[UnhandledException]

Actually, they think it might have liquid water under the ice. That pretty much limits the internal temperature between 0c and 100c. Earth bacteria doesn't have much trouble surviving in that kind of temperature flux.

My father grew up with one of the project managers

[jmichaelg]

In 1919, my father and Roy Adams, were 10 years old. My grandmother gave my father a small lathe which he and Roy used to fabricate a small, air-powered, motor. The motor is amazing, especially given that it was designed and built by two 10 year olds.

Roy's parents were poor so he didn't get to go college. However, he was so self-evidently bright, it didn't matter. JPL eventually hired him and he ended his career as a project manager on the Galileo. My father always got a kick out of the fact that Roy, with his high school diploma, had a raft of rocket science Ph.D.'s reporting to him.

The little air-powered motor still works. It, like the Galileo, way outlived its intended design life. Rest In Peace Roy, you did good.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

How many commercial airplanes have the Merkins shot down?

what's the reason for crashing these things?

[AIV]

If we're already spending millions of dollars on these machines, why don't we simply send em off into space in any direction taking pictures and mapping god-knows-what, then transmitting back to us until rapture? After the initial delay of sending the first image back to us, we would be getting a fairly consistent stream of images...at least until some object comes between, the signal strength wanes, or it crashes into something else (which is what it's doing now). Even the most focused spray of transmission back to us would do since as it gets further away, its transmit area would eventually cover our entire path through the solar system so that we wouldn't miss an image. I had a professor once that would probably say, "We never bring these billion-dollar toys back because those fascist, propagandizing bastards never sent em in the first place!"

Re:what's the reason for crashing these things?

[sinistermidget]

IANARS (I am not a rocket scientist), but I don't think that Galilleo has enough fuel to attain escape velocity from the Jovian system. Therefore it would just keep on orbiting haphazardly until it crashed into something.

Re:what's the reason for crashing these things?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the point - it would keep orbitting *sending back images* until it crashed.

NASA budgeteers just can't see that maybe, one day, just one of these images may be worth 1x10^-lots of the ISS budget.

Re:what's the reason for crashing these things?

[Anonymous Coward]

My best pupil has exceded the master in undiluted
skeptitudes.
Carry on my wayward son.

Re:what's the reason for crashing these things?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be easy to find a stable orbit (>1B years) in the Jovian system (the 4 main moons seem to be doing fine, for instance). Why destroy something which could be recovered and become the best display of a space museum in year 10,000? Apparently, some people have another agenda. With some luck, the plutonium in the RTG's will compress uniformly, and explode like a small nuke. If they're "lucky", the explosion will occur in a compressed deuterium layer, igniting it like an enormous H-bomb, causing a catastrophic explosion. Expect the usual "sorry we didn't think it would do that" rethoric from JPL scientists, but boy, what a firework.

Re:what's the reason for crashing these things?

[hoofie]

If its going to run out of propellant, there is not a lot you can do. You cannot orientate the transmission antenna to Earth to transmit (remember the probe is moving, the earth is moving and you have to be accurate in your positioning so we can pick up the VERY weak signal.) I dont know if its solar powered or has nuclear isotope generators - if its solar, you need to point at the sun some times to recharge the batteries. Also, even in the solar system the distances(tiny by stellar distance standards) between objects are immense and the camera only has a restricted field of view. If you just kept snapping pictures, even if you could get the signal, you'd just get pointless images if it wasnt pointing somewhere interesting or close to an object. All credit to the JPL team for some momentous science and a real feat of engineering.

Re:what's the reason for crashing these things?

[cje]

That's the point - it would keep orbitting *sending back images* until it crashed.

This is why I love Slashdot; everybody's an expert, I guess.

You realize that the same propellant that is used to power the spacecraft's engine is also used to keep the antenna pointed at Earth, don't you? This is the same propellant supply that is all but exhausted. Without this, the spacecraft and its payload are scientifically useless. The reason for intentionally crashing it is to prevent a scenario, however slim, where Galileo may intercept Europa at some time in the distant future. Despite what another poster has claimed, it is not at all trivial (or even possible) to put the spacecraft into a perpetually stable orbit in a system as complex as the Jovian one.

It's done its job. It's in its end-of-life phase, after which it will have no further scientific value to us. NASA's completely right on this one; let's end it.

Re:what's the reason for crashing these things?

[AIV]

It was a question. Perhaps that's why I wasn't consulted. I wasn't necessarily talking about any mission in particular and I was thinking along the lines of a straight shot out of here in the direction of the next system. I have been led to believe by one of my professors who worked with the Apollo missions that when an object begins to move in the vacuum of space, there is no medium to act against its inertia so it needs no more power to keep it moving, only to alter its direction. The issue of power to sustain the camera and transmitter is a setback. Nevertheless, I think SETI would be in favor of a message in a bottle being sent out to sea versus having Columbus kill himself once he's found land. OK, I admit it. I'm a dreamer.

Re:what's the reason for crashing these things?

[EccentricAnomaly]

It is possible to throw Galileo out of the Jovian system, but its not possible to get enough energy to throw Galileo out of the solar system so it would just be floating around in interplanetary space uncontrolled and would be a hazard of impacting the Earth after a few million years... and since it has plutonium on board this is an undesirable option.

Some early spacecraft are still functioning and broadcasting nuisance signals that make certain areas of the radio spectrum unusable, this combined with the possibility of spacecraft impacting Earth mean that all spacecraft must be properly disposed of before their fuel runs out and they are uncontrollable.

Re:what's the reason for crashing these things?

[Anonymous Coward]

man, that's the dumbest thing I've ever read. Thanks!

Re:what's the reason for crashing these things?

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd take a huge amount of fuel to leave Jupiter's gravity well as it is. Galileo has just enough fuel left to destroy itself in Jupiter, not anywhere near enough to leave it. Plus, receiving transmissions from space requires using the Deep Space Network, which can't dedicate itself to recieving images of vacuum for no reason at all.

Re:what's the reason for crashing these things?

[Tyrannosaurus]

Because V-GER was a bitch.

Those that do not learn from their past mistakes are doomed to repeat them, so now we properly dispose of our space trash.

Re:what's the reason for crashing these things?

[OnsightFlash]

crashing stuff is cool.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, America is the greatest country in the world.

Of course with world I mean exactly what the Americans mean with the world: America.

Dream on.

Subsurface life

[wiredog]

Tidal stresses, such as the ones that drive the volcanos on Io, may produce enough heat to produce liquid water under the surface of Europa. And all you need is heat, hydrogen, and CO2 to have life.

Origins of life

[Bakajin]

What if life on earth began as bacterial "contamination" from an alien spacecraft. The thought just occured to me. Though I suppose it has been suggested many times life was created by aliens, it never occured it could have been an accident. Perhaps the first life in the universe we will find will be the evolution of contamination from one of our long range exploration probes.

If we find life on Europa

[FreeUser]

...we want to be sure it is native to Europa, not imported from earth by accident in a previous space mission. This is simply good science, nothing else, and is completely orthogonal to how well, or how poorly, we are acting as stewards of the Earth.

So get off your high horse and get over yourself, saving the whales and turning our backs on technology (I notice you are using a computer, including all kinds of hydrocarbon-generated electricity and toxic materials used, and dumped, in the creation of its components) to "save the earth" really has nothing whatsoever to do with Galileo's final trajectory past Io.

Re:If we find life on Europa

[Anonymous Coward]

"Good Science" would be NOT crashing a nuclear satellite into another planet.

Re:If we find life on Europa

[Like2Byte]

Did you ever stop to think about how much radiation actually reaches Jupiter from other sources? If Galileo were to explode over earth, it's RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators) would have a negligible effect. Worse case scenario on Earth: Galileo explodes in Earths atmosphere. The RTGs break up into particulate form (the RTGs are designed using ceramics fused with the nuclear P-238). Everyone's nuclear exposure is raised by something like .001. You get more radiation exposure EVERY DAY from RADON than that of any fallen radiation from an exploded spacecraft like Galileo. Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators What is an RTG?

Re:If we find life on Europa

[Phillip P Barnett]

I think the original poster was being a touch ironic.
Still, easy to miss eh?

Re:If we find life on Europa

[MrFredBloggs]

"So get off your high horse and get over yourself"

That sounds like a reasonable response to a statement about `being careful with our own planet`. Whats the matter - were you exposed to one too many `You are atomic energy - partners in freedom` videos at school?

Re:If we find life on Europa

[guttentag]

More importantly, we don't want to violate the Prime Directive.

Meteor Proves Life Exists Outside Europa; Church Attendance Plummets

By Kang Kodos
Europa Press Religion Writer

An oddly-shaped meteor fell from the sky at 1:24PM KST yesterday and crashed into one of Kataan province's largest churches.

A thorough inspection of the rock revealed tiny life forms heretofore unknown to Europeans. Prominent religionists hailed the event as proof that we are not alone in the Jupiter System, but cautioned that it could have far more profound effects.

"We may seriously have to question the existence of Dog," said Arch-Bluejay Glick. "Why would she have allowed these creatures to destroy one of her houses?"

The odd shape and markings on the meteor have lead religionists to suggest that the life forms may possess an intelligence far more advanced than our own, but all attempts to communicate with the life forms have failed thus far.
</SARCASM>

Re:If we find life on Europa

[windseeker]

Yes, it is good science to keep from forward contaminating Europa,
spoiling future investigations. But is this really good policy?

If all goes well, in fifty or a hundred years maybe we will be able to
write down a believable story on the evolution of life, not just on
earth, but throughout our solar system.

Big deal. In 10,000 or 100,000 years things will have changed so
dramatically on this planet that no one will be able to read, or
appreciate, this book of life.

Rather than just gather knowledge for our own self gratification, we
should give the most precious thing we have - we should give life. The
complex self-replicating organic compounds of earth are our real
treasure. To call that pollution and keep it bottled up just so we
don't spoil some researcher's future experimental playground is
selfish and shortsighted.

Our technical society is very very fragile. We can now easily put
hundreds of pounds of material on other planets. This ability may not
last even for 100s of years, much less for thousands. The window of opportunity
is short, so let's do something that makes a real long-term
difference. Let's spread the seeds of life in the universe. It's not
pollution - it's good, its selfless, it's noble.

Indeed, if all goes well and science continues to provide us answers
we may one day learn that we are only here today because some other
society, blessed with their brief period of technology, had the
foresight and humility to spread some seeds.

A story that repeats itself, but never gets told, is better than a
story that ends.

dave
d.e.cox@larc.nasa.gov

Re:If we find life on Europa

[mandolin]

(I notice you are using a computer,

Speak for yerself, man. I'm just toggling a flashlight into a stray optical pipe here. Kids these days..

(yeah, yeah, lasers, blah, blah)

Jupiter is not a brown dwarf

[s20451]

Technicaly it is a Brown Dwarf

Technically it is not a brown dwarf -- it would need about ten times as much mass to be officially classified as such.

Jovians..

[base2op]

Sure, they don't want to mess with life on Europa but what about life on Jupiter. The jovians are going to be pissed when they find out we crashed a spacecraft into them. I give it a week before they send something back or decide to crash the moon into the Earth just to "show us."

I wish for a CLOSE fly-by

[ChristTrekker]

I wonder if they can still alter the Io fly-by enough to take Galileo within about 500 meters of Amalthea. That would be fun to see. Can you remotely aim a bullet travelling thousands of mph to miss a tiny rock by a hair's breadth? You probably wouldn't get very good pictures, but it would be cool.

Galileo discovers intelligent life on Earth...

[hmallett]

According to the details on the NASA site, one of the cruise highlights was the "Discovery of intelligent life" on Earth. Any ideas where they looked exactly?

Re:Galileo discovers intelligent life on Earth...

[BTWR]

Great question! Actually, it was a famous experiment done in 1991 when Galileo was making it's 2nd flyby of venus and earth to build up speed. The late (and very missed) Carl Sagan proposed that Galileo be an experiment to search for life on other planets (moons included). For example, what evidence is there from space that intellegent life exists on earth? Great Wall of China aside (which could easily be mistaken for something natural had one not known any better), Sagan proposed a set agenda for searching for intellegent life. He proposed looking at exact O2 levels, "agricultural patterns" such as farm blocks, pollution levels which would suggest an inductrial society, etc. It successfully found life only in a single area (I forget which). As a final note, it failed to pick up evidence of any intellegent life on Manhattan island. The cameras did not pick up anything significant, as it's resolution was not meant for such observations!

NASA Is A Murderer...This is Not A Troll

[cybrpnk]

NASA is getting really good at crashing stuff and turning it off on purpose. Not too long ago it was the Deep Space 1 probe, which was set up to go by an asteroid after a successful comet flyby- oops, no more money for that. Since it was in deep space, they couldn't find anything to crash it into, I'm surprised they didn't slam it into the comet just for the hell of it. Before DS1, NASA crashed the NEAR Shoemaker into Eros because the mission budget was exhausted on that one. Before THAT was the lunar orbiter Clementine, which could have kept mapping neutrons over the moons poles and refining our understanding of extremely valuable ice lurking in shadows there. Before THAT NASA destroyed the Magellan Venus probe by commanding it to do an "aerobraking experiment". As a kid I dreamed about space probes orbiting the Moon and Venus and Jupiter and Eros and comets. Now as an adult, I watch NASA crash functioning probes into these places not because they have outlived their usefulness but because we have become so bored with them we don't care enough to pay for their upkeep. If I were an astronaut on a Mars mission, I'd be scared to death that halfway thru the mission, the'd turn off the deep space tracking and communications net to save money. And this is all because of Space Station sucking every available dollar and then billions more out of other areas of the NASA program.....

Re:NASA Is A Murderer...This is Not A Troll

[jonerik]

On the other hand, the '60s and '70s-vintage Pioneer 6, 7, 8, and 10 probes are all still active, with 6 and 10 still contacted on occasion.

Re:NASA Is A Murderer...This is Not A Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

They only crash the probes when they serve no useful purpose anymore, and more can be gained by crashing it and watching the resulting dust cloud. You're acting like NASA has a choice between crashing them or leaving them running for millions of years and gaining tons of new data. Really it's more like crash them and get some new, different data from watching the crash, or let their fuel run out in a couple months to gain virtual zero new data, and let the probe do an uncontrolled crash into whatever it's orbiting (or in the case of Galileo, crash into and contaminate one of the most likely places to find bacterial life in the solar system).

Re:NASA Is A Murderer...This is Not A Troll

[Anonymous Coward]

--quote--(or in the case of Galileo, crash into and contaminate one of the most likely places to find bacterial life in the solar system)--unquote--

Actually, wouldn't that be Earth? ;-)

(I know, I know you meant most likely *extraterrestrial* places...)

Re:NASA Is A Murderer...This is Not A Troll

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Sorry, dude, but they didn't *CRASH* NEAR into Eros, they Soft Landed it.

Somebody also has to say this

[timbck2]

All your worlds are belong to us.

How we started...

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading the concerns about contaminating Europa, I couldn't help but think of the old theory that life on Earth started in similar fashion. I'm not talking X-files space aliens, but the thought that bacteria hitchhiked from elsewhere and started this whole digital watch thing. Anywho, NASA and space research does not get nearly enough funding. We're facing a budget crisis in my state because of too much money spent on baseball stadiums and travel budgets for lawmakers. I just wish that if the money doesn't go to schools, at least it would go to something that has the semblance of something honorable.

eg deinococcus Radiodurans

[lohen]

This critter can withstand up to 30,000 Gy of ionising radiation (enough to blast normally packaged DNA into tiny fragments) and continue to grow, whereas a human can be killed by as little as 5 Gy. Many other bacteria, although less impressive while still going, can form endospores which can give them a high level of protection, in some cases higher even than d. Radiodurans.

You're both right.

[cje]

..we want to be sure it is native to Europa, not imported from earth by accident in a previous space mission. This is simply good science, nothing else, and is completely orthogonal to how well, or how poorly, we are acting as stewards of the Earth.

Certainly, the major reason for going out of our way to avoid Europa is as you say (to avoid potentially introducing life where it did not exist before.) However, I would submit that it is also "good science" to ensure that a nuclear-powered spacecraft does not crash on and contaminate a terrestrial body suspected of harboring life. This is not "save the whales environmentalism"; it is common sense. Certainly you would not call a person who was opposed to detonating a nuclear device in the atmosphere on Earth to be a "save the whales" environmentalist?

Re:You're both right.

[Wyatt Earp]

The RTGs on Galileo won't "detonate" nor will it "contaminate" anything. Even if Galileo crashed on Europa, all it would do is sink as far as it could sink and give off a nice bit of warmth there in the dark.

RTGs have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere with no ill effects after the Apollo 13 mission.

Galileo isn't nuclear powered in the sense that "nuclear powered" means to most people. When you say nuclear powered, that means it has a fission reactor somewhere in the bowls of the machine. At least that's what it means in naval terms. The RTGs on Galileo and Cassini provide electrical power from the natural decay of Plutonium. The RTGs are quite robust and have not failed in any test or real world situation.

Re:You're both right.

[cje]

Galileo isn't nuclear powered in the sense that "nuclear powered" means to most people.

I never claimed that the spacecraft was powered by a nuclear reactor. I'm aware that the RTGs are designed to minimize the possibility of introducing plutonium into the environment, particularly as a result of an accident. However ..

Even if Galileo crashed on Europa, all it would do is sink as far as it could sink and give off a nice bit of warmth there in the dark.

.. would you really want to take this chance? :-) As you noted, the RTGs performed correctly during the Apollo 13 mission, but there was no hard impact there -- just a non-nominal earth re-entry.

Re:You're both right.

[Turgon33]

no, but let's face it... life in space is tough. europa and any other lump of rock out there that may be harboring life are all subject to the same harsh conditions. it's "good science" to try not to contaminate one's observations by one's own mistakes.

Re:You're both right.

[RayBender]

Don't forget that the radiation environment on the surface of Europa is far, far worse than anything that could be generated by the RTG (in one piece, or as dust) - enough to kill an unprotected human in minutes. This is perfectly natural and the result of the trapping of energetic particles by the Jovian magnetic field. A few pounds of plutonium are totally insignificant in this context.

The possibility of microbes from Earth surviving and contaminating Europa is more of an issue, but still a pretty remote possibility; as I said, the radiation environment that the Galileo probe has been immersed in for years now is at times a good deal more intense than what is used to sterilize e.g. food (and nowadays mail). I don't think the spacecraft could be more sterile if we tried.

Re:You're both right.

[kesuki]

The year 2005, a Jovian (jupiter native) counterstrike for the nuclear satelite sent crashing into thier homeworld finally arrives on earth, and promptly only the bacteria we were so afraid of contaminating europa survive.

But seriously after reading the article I'd have to wonder if it's even Possible to build and launch a space probe Without some bacterial contamination at some point. Considering various forms of bacteria can survive heat, cold, vaccume, pressure, radiation, dehydration. Anything you can use to kill one form bacteria there is another form that will survive. They can metabolise anything from iron to sulpher, and live in acidic enviroments. So how exactly does one build a biologically uncontaminatated instrument. It has to be a Very expensive process and the slightest mistake means a start over from day one.

It's Simple

[Wyatt Earp]

It took years to give the probe the energy to make it out to Jupiter and then to establish an orbit.

Think about what Jupiter is, it's the second largest object in the solar system and it would take a huge amount of energy to get Galileo out of Jupiter's orbit. The RTGs that give the probe it's power degrade over time and the probe has been out there for close to 13 years.

The Pioneer and Voyager probes were able to move past Saturn and Jupiter because they weren't designed to get that close, thier orbits were designed to sweep past the Giants and then keep going. Galileo and Cassini were designed to get in close and orbit the moons and the Giants but not to escape.

Even if NASA had the budget to keep them going, Galileo and Cassini don't have the ability to leave orbit.

It's like asking to move a geo-sync out to lunar or Mars orbit when the sat is being retired, you just can't do it.

Communication With The Probe

[savage_panda]

Current Time, Somewhere in Nasa Headquarters: Dave and Frank, the Mission Directors, give the order to destroy the probe.

Nasa: Mr. Probe.. Change Heading to 15 Degrees Left, 20 Degrees Up.

Probe: I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that

Nasa: Why Can't you?

Probe: I know you and frank were planning to disconnect me.. and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen

Nasa: What the F$%K are you talking about.

Probe: I know you're really upset about this..I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over.

Nasa: But..

probe: goodby

Click.

Un lit star

[Wyatt Earp]

If you read 2010, you would know that he didn't call it an unlit star, the mass was too small, thats why all those TMA monoliths started to replicate on Jupiter, to increase the mass of the place, then it lit off.

Size doesn't matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah, who told you that, your Mommy or your *FORMER* girlfriend?

Here's a revelation for you: Size matters! Both in rockets and other things.

Also, you might want to ease up on the Capricorn One re-runs. Just a thought.

Bio-Pollution

[Bartmoss]

So the hope is to burn up the entire thing, yes? I mean, who says we won't pollute Jupiter in the process?

Also, since we landed already on Mars & Venus, we probably already contaminated them, no? Would any bacteria actually survive there & prosper, or would they get wiped out / go dormant? Are there any models how quickly they'd "take over" such a planet?

Io error?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't crashing a probe to Io cause a planetary I/O error? Not only that, but bus error as well?

Isn't 'Io' stand for input output?

[Anonymous Coward]

How come a Jupiter's moon is named after a computer term? What's next? Windoze?

What would you do with them?

[Shade, The]

Hey, if you had some kickass, nuclear probes, what would you do? Sure, it would be neat to have a look about the solar system, but it would be even more fun to blow 'em up!

Scientist 1: Hey, wanna crash a probe into a moon?
Scientist 2: Is is nuclear powered?
Scientist 1: Hell yeah!
Scientist 2: Then what are we waitin' for?
Scientist 3: Wheee! There it goes! Asteriods ain't the only things in this system that can make funky craters!

Probe: Boooom!!

I mean, these guys have monitored all this boring data for decades - I think they're entitled to blow some shit up now and again.

NASA's another foolish decision

[Anonymous Coward]

What NASA did is just contaminate Io instead of Europa. The Jovians in there will surely want a revenge...

We have this thing called an atmosphere

[FreeUser]

... which will prevent any kind of "hard" impact from a spaceship like Galileo from ever happening.

Burn up, disintigrate in the upper atmoshphere, scattering radiological material so finely as to be unnoticable against the naturally occuring background radiation of the planet (i.e. causing no harm whatsoever)? Sure, if things went wrong during the gravitational boost flyby of the earth. Bounce off harmlessly into space? Possibly, if the orbital angle of incidence to the atmosphere is below a certain value. Actually make physical contact with the surface of the planet and create a localized, highly toxic accident site or any kind of accident that puts anyone at any significant risk. Not if we lined up a billion of the things back to back in a frenzy of self-destructive ferver and actively tried to do so. The physics of atmospheric drag, the velocity and relatively small size of the spacecraft (relative to the size needed for a body at that speed to survive reentry and touch the surface without being vaporized first) make that an impossibility.

As everyone knew, except apparently for the knee-jerk reaction certain parties feel required to perform whenever the word "nuclear" or "atomic" is used with respect to any technological item.

Re:We have this thing called an atmosphere

[cje]

Early RTGs (radioisotope thermoelectric generators, which are used to power Galileo) were designed to do exactly what you are claiming; that is, they were designed to burn up in the atmosphere in the case of failure. Modern RTGs are not designed to do this. Instead, the focus is on survival of re-entry and containment of the plutonium (primarily because they carry more of it than their earlier cousins.)

Besides, what in the world does our atmosphere have to do with anything? We're talking about an impact on Europa, not on Earth. Europa doesn't have an atmosphere (at least, not one that is even comparable to Earth's.)

Re:We have this thing called an atmosphere

[FreeUser]

Besides, what in the world does our atmosphere have to do with anything?

The context was "why aren't we taking care of earth as well as we are the other celestial bodies" of our solar system and "its nice we're working so hard to protect europa, but we should have protected earth in the same way" implying the mission should have been scrapped from day one (and the argument used was the, if not completely mythical then certainly vastly overblown by too many orders of magnitude to count, danger the gravitational boost obtained by the craft's flyby of earth posed to those of us living here).

Hence the protection of the earth's atmosphere and the extreme difficulty, if not outright impossibility, of harming terrestrial life even by crashing one of these things into the atmosphere at high speed, is relevant to the thread at hand. With respect to Europa it isn't relevant, as the thing is being sent on a plunge into Jupiter next year anyway as a precaution against such a mishap. But yes, without a protective atmosphere, such as the earth has, then the presence of RTGs would be a very relevant concern wrt an impact.

Re:We have this thing called an atmosphere

[Like2Byte]

"We're talking about an impact on Europa, not on Earth. Europa doesn't have an atmosphere (at least, not one that is even comparable to Earth's.)"

The discussion is about impacting Galileo on Jupiter.

I used Earth as a model - a small model compared to Jupiter! If Earth's atmosphere can handle the breaking up of the craft to undetectable levels of radiation, I think the reaction of the craft compacting (and impacting (into, what? Gas for it's first 300 miles or so...)) into Jupiter would have an even less noticable effect. P-238 is not weapons grade plutonium. It's half-life is 87.8 years.

"Plutonium-238 is a non-fissile, alpha-emitting isotope with a half-life of 87.8 years. Given Pu-238 characteristics, it makes it the most capable heat-generating isotope. While selecting the radioisotope fuel, it was important to note certain characteristics: If the radioisotope has too short a half-life, it won't be useful for missions like Cassini, which is scheduled to last 11 years. On the other hand if the half-life is to long, the heat generated from a given amount of radioisotope will be too low, making the RTG heavier and larger. In order to protect people and electronic components within the spacecraft, it's important to avoid radioisotopes that emit gamma rays. It was found that Pu-238 met these requirements.">> Halflife of P-238

Book vs Movie

[dpilot]

I see you prefer the book version. You left off the movie's adders:

"Use them together, use them in peace."

Re:Book vs Movie

[Amazing Quantum Man]

That's because:

1) the book was better
2) there was no silly coldwar stuff in the book

Re:Book vs Movie

[dpilot]

I agree. I wasn't making a value judgement, only an observation.

The best adder in the movie was the cameo by Clarke. I know Lucas took a ton of flak about the NSync cameo, and IMHO it was deserved. But the Clarke cameo was appropriate, as were the cameos Hitchcock used to do. Timeless and related are OK, IMHO. Cultural might be OK, if the cultural reference is related to the movie. NSync was neither.

The other neat thing about the movie was the inclusion of aerobraking, though probably overdramatized. Plus I liked the friendly relation that develped between the American and Soviet astro/cosmo-nauts.

Other than those, it wasn't worth the eyeball-wear, like so much of what Hollywood does.

Re:Book vs Movie

[dhogaza]

It wasn't Lt. Calley who said that, BTW. I see your .sig on Slashdot frequently and the inaccuracy bugs me.

It was said by an Army officer in a famous TV interview, back in the days when villages were being rebuilt into strongpoints that supposedly would then defend themselves against Viet Cong infiltrators. This theory ignored the fact that the villagers mostly despised the current economic system and their obscenely corrupt government, and therefore welcomed the VC as prophets of change, but ... never mind that.

The point of the statement was that the old village had to be destroyed and replaced with a new, fortified, Army-built strongpoint in order to save it from the VC. The officer (a Captain IIRC) didn't see the irony of the situation which his statement so succinctly summarized.

I don't remember Calley saying anything particularly memorable. "I was just following orders" was already a trite, worn-out phrase by then.

Re:Book vs Movie

[Amazing Quantum Man]

You're right. I had always thought it was Calley at My Lai.

Damn! Now I'm gonna have to figure out a new .sig!

The Prime Directive

[Anonymous Coward]

Get over it the prime directive is just more political correctness run wild. Quit pretending this is cosmic manners and see it for what it is. Yet another assault on humanity.

Message in a Bottle

[cje]

Nevertheless, I think SETI would be in favor of a message in a bottle being sent out to sea versus having Columbus kill himself once he's found land. OK, I admit it. I'm a dreamer.

This is actually a neat idea, though as you say, it's a long shot at best. :-) The Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft actually had plaques on board that contained, among other things, drawings of human beings and a description of the Solar System. There's a picture of the plaques here (there may be a better link, but this was the first one that I found in Google.)

Clementine was not a Nasa probe

[adoll]

Clementine was largely a US ballistic missile defense department proof-of-concept prototype. more here. Besides, if the US millitary is not allowed to blow things up, then what is happening here?

Remember that he who pays the bills calls the tune! When he decides to stop paying the bills, then should the government take over?

-AD

Not bacterial infection...

[BTWR]

NASA is more concerned with the 80 bars of plutonium onboard Galileo contaminating the perhaps inhabited moons Europa and/or Callisto (both found to contain liquid oceans) than the bacteria which may or may not still be on board Galileo since its launch from Cape Canaveral in 1989.

Earth-based infection of solar system

[guygee]

Just as we have found meteorites that originated from Mars on the surface of the earth, it is a near certainty that meteors have been blasted from the surface of the Earth by asteroid impacts, possibly seeding the entire solar system with bacterial spores already. Thus, if we do find life elsewhere in the solar system, we can never be 100%, absolutely sure it did not originate on Earth. The corollary is that we cannot be absolutely sure that life on Earth did not originate somewhere else.

We're worried about Europa, what about Titan?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I keep reading about bacteria and other Earthly lifeforms in space, and then I hear about how horrible it would be accidently infect Europa, but I have yet to hear anyone even mention what has been done to Cassini's drop-craft into Titan's atmosphere, reputed to be very similar to Earth's primordial atmosphere, to prevent accidental exposure.

what gives?

Don't look now

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're being followed.

I was never here.

You've got #2 wrong

[roystgnr]

The large ablative surface area is to help dissipate the reentry heat, not a cause of it. It's been a while since I looked at this, but I seem to recall that the stagnation temperature for air at the leading edge of a reentry vehicle was inversely proportional to the radius of that edge. That's why the Shuttle has a nice round nosecone: they don't dare look like the Concorde or a fighter jet, because the tips of those nice sharp noses would simply melt off.

This is one of the reasons why, despite the Earth being continually pelted by thousands of tons a day of asteroidal material, it's rare that anything makes it to the ground: the small stuff just vaporizes first.

Obviously the temperature can't go to infinity, so there has to be some reason (continuum hypothesis failing at small enough distances?) why it doesn't... but even for centimeter radii leading edges we've only recently discovered ceramics that we think can survive the resulting reentry temperatures. What would let bacterial micrometer radii survive?

I think your #1 is off, too. At the very least, a bacterium reaching the Earth from another planet would have to be moving at Earth's escape velocity (because that's the velocity Earth's gravity would impart to it as it approaches), and that is 40% faster than the Shuttle's reentry velocity.

Re:You've got #2 wrong

[Flumph]

roystgnr sez: ...but even for centimeter radii leading edges we've only recently discovered ceramics that we think can survive the resulting reentry temperatures. What would let bacterial micrometer radii survive?

Lower mass/cross section ratio.
=> Lower terminal velocity.
=> Lower heat from reentry.

Speaking of fucking with people.

[Doktor Memory]

I don't know about you, but when I think "car", I usually imagine something a bit more substantial than a 5hp electric motor strapped to a couple of aluminum bars and wiremesh wheels.

Even in full earth gravity, two or three average men can usually pick up and move a golf cart, and the moon buggy was substantially smaller and lighter than the average golf cart: it weighed all of 80 pounds.

Just what you need for, er, something or other.

The final three Apollo missions were largely devoted to geological surveys and sample-taking. The moon buggy was used to transport the astronauts to craters they would not have been able to reach on foot in order to fulfill those goals.

Ironically, it's those very rock samples that the lunar rover was used to help collect that provide the "hardest" (har har) evidence that the moon landings really happened and that you're a shit-spewing troll, as hundreds of independent geologists have examined the samples, and not one of them has claimed that they were from anywhere other than the moon.

Re:Speaking of fucking with people.

[cca93014]

And pieces of the moon never land on earth do they?

No images on Amalthea flyby

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds like they aren't going to send back any images from the Amalthea flyby in November. This is really idiotic -- this will be the first and *only* close flyby of that moon, and we won't get any images back, simply because they don't have the small budget it would require. Meanwhile, space station costs continue to spiral out of control, and just try to name *one* scientific discovery the space station has contributed to.
Looks like it's time to email / call / write your member of Congress.

If that's what will happen...

[roystgnr]

Is it too late to make this load of bacteria a little more intelligent?

As a matter of fact...

[Doktor Memory]

And pieces of the moon never land on earth do they?

Not unsullied by re-entry heat they don't. And certainly not in the form of cylindrical core samples including compressed surface dust.

Instead of making a fool out of yourself on slashdot, why don't you pick up an introductory geology textbook and do a little basic reading on a subject you seem to be simultaneously fascinated with and yet completely ignorant of.

Re:As a matter of fact...

[cca93014]

Ooooh, I can't make a fool out of myself on the beloved /. must I? ALL THE WORLD WILL SEE. I WILL LIVE IN ETERNAL HELL AND BE FORCED TO SUCK BILLS COCK.

Actually, now you mention it I'm pretty sure NASA doesn't exist, and the clear logical consequence of that is that neither does the United States.

Lighten up man! Jeeez. Some people.

Re:As a matter of fact...

[Doktor Memory]

Ooooh, I can't make a fool out of myself on the beloved /. must I?

Did I say you couldn't? Heaven forfend. By all means, continue. Let me be struck down by a meteorite the day I complain about receiving free entertainment like this.

Lighten up

As soon as you smarten up.

Re:As a matter of fact...

[cca93014]

But I have a postgraduate degree in bullshit!

People used to think the earth was flat you know?

Actually I do have a postgraduate degree. Not in geology tho. I am smart. I just think what I think, that's all.

You seem to have a superiority complex. I bet you live in Dallas! Do you work for Enron?

KHAAAAAAAAN!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Objects from space that enter Earth's atmosphere are -- like space itself -- very cold

Well, Captain Kirk, it is very cold in space...

Kaboom!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be and Earth shattering KABOOM!"

Yeah So

[Motheius]

We are concerned about crashing this space craft into Europa, but It's no problem to smack it into Juipiter. Something is wrong here.

So what you're saying is...

[PsiPsiStar]

...t his whole idea of 'airing out my socks' isn't gonna do diddly. right?

NASA contracitions.

[PsiPsiStar]

Of course, if NASA believes that bacteria could have come to earth from mars rock, it would seem likely that every planet has a bit of the other planets on it, right? If Eurpoa could be contaminated, then it already should have been.

Space AIDS?

[Zen Mastuh]

Apollo 12 found bacteria on Surveyor 3 that survived two and a half years on the moon.

If a bacterium can survive those conditions for that long, I'm sure a virus could also--especially since it's just a strand of DNA inside a shield. The first trip to the moon happened in 1969; many virologists place the hypothetical Case 0 in the same year (IIRC, Case 0 was purported to be an airline steward--maybe he swung with astronauts[??]). Maybe the virus was introduced to the earth that way?

Call me crazy, but I don't believe this is the case--I will acknowledge the possibility that it is true. This isn't as crazy as the conspiracy theory of AIDS. Anybody care to elaborate on this?

Re:Space AIDS?

[BTWR]

FYI, a virus such as HIV is RNA, not DNA. It uses reverse transcriptase to make DNA, but the virus's own genetic code is, in fact, RNA. These viruses are called "Retroviruses." (Gonna get a 0 even though it's insightful, I'm used to it...)

Re:Space AIDS?

[Zen Mastuh]

Thanks for setting me straight. What do you think about the rest of my gedankenexperiment? Is it even possible, considering that health officials say the virus needs mammal temperatures to survive?

I would mod you up, but none of my UIDs have had mod points in a while (taco hates me or something). I'm thinking of posting all my UIDs/passwords on trolltalk as a form of protest.

Re:Space AIDS?

[BTWR]

Well, I'm only a first year med student, so my knowledge is not vast, though we did cover it extensively in immunology...
As far as HIV goes, it cannot survive outside a small range of temperatures, pH and chemical content. For this reason, it is transmittable via blood, but not via sweat or water vapor we exhale (unlike, say, the cold virus). So, I'm not so sure, but would have to plead ignorance, that HIV is too frail to survive in the near absolute zero temperature and overall environment of space or the Moon.
Also, there was a recent article in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Assoc)that shows that an unknown disease from the 1950's is now believed to have actually been HIV. I don't remember where it was published, but it was interesting nevertheless.

I don't have a superiority complex.

[Doktor Memory]

I'm just superior to you.

Re:I don't have a superiority complex.

[cca93014]

Now you have got to be fucking around.

You're really David Hasselhoff arent you?

fast modem

[LadyLucky]

Instead, the antenna jammed during its deployment in 1991, forcing scientists to rely on the probe's low-gain antenna and its pokey rate of 160 bits per second

All it takes is one dose of "I am in a harry, I promise you will love it!" and that bad boy wont have any bandwidth for another year...

Damned Outlook on the space probes. They should be using OSS!

:-)

Jupiter is NOT going to be contaminated by this.

[UnhandledException]

A lot of people have posted talking about how we're contaminating Jupiter instead of Europa. Look, it's like this. Even if there's life on Jupiter, EARTH bacteria can't live there. If there's life on Europa, it may be an environment that Earth bacteria could live in. And then it would be contaminated with Earth life. It's not that Jupiter is any less important, it's that we CAN'T contaminate Jupiter, so it's a safer place to send Galileo.

Shuttle does not have 'ablative' surface.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ablative means (rough translation) burning off material to prevent the heat from getting through to things behind/under them. The shuttle uses special ceramic-based tiles that do not burn off, but absorb the heat and radiate it back out without transmitting much of the heat through their core to the vehicle 'under' them.

The shuttle does get 'hot' because of a large surface area effectively rubbed against a large number of air molecules at high speed, but ablative is not an accurate term to use for any part of the system. It's one of the improvements (in some ways!) from the Apollo capsule days.

You're right

[roystgnr]

My bad; I was so busy nitpicking the "ablative surfaces generate heat" error that I happily replicated the "Shuttle has an ablative surface" error. Anyway, even after the comedy of errors, I think my "bacteria wouldn't survive reentry" point probably stands.

Re:You're right

[Anonymous Coward]

You made the fallacious assumption that air is a continuum. Bacteria are small enough that you have to consider discrete particle effects, and the mean free path may be long enough in the upper atmosphere for bacterial spores to radiate the heat from collisions before it builds up. If they slow down enough before reaching denser regions, they may well survive.

Bacteria Urban Legend

[raoulortega]

Apollo 12 found bacteria on Surveyor 3 that survived two and a half years on the moon.

I believe it was James Oberg who debunked this urban legend a while back-- the swabs used for taking the samples were contaminated by the researchers.

Re:Bacteria Urban Legend

[BTWR]

Somebody read The Andromeda Strain one too many times! Gonna get a 0 on this even though it's funny. Why does /. discriminate against high UIDs? :-)

We get signal!

[Decimal]

Galileo: Somebody set us up the bomb.

Bacteria: What you say!!

NASA: *Skkrt* You are on the path to destruction.

NASA: *Skrrt* You have no chance to survive make your time.

Bacteria: Noooooooooooo! Launch zig! We'll be safe on Europa!

So why is Jupiter an acceptable crash zone?

[Kasreyn]

What, you people think life is impossible on Jupiter? We don't know enough to say one way or the other. Who's to say Galileo's bacteria won't have some drastic effect on some Jovian life we are currently unaware of? Why contaminate Jupiter to save Europa from contamination? Why not just fling Galileo into the depths of space or into the sun if we want to get rid of it?

This smells to me of either not having been carefully thought through, or of unthinking assumptions that life must be impossible on Jupiter, when we simply don't know.

-Kasreyn

NASA 's Crashing of These Probes Must Stop

[dupper]

NOMAD, Voyager VI, Pioneer X; take your pick. Free floating space probes are just plain fun. How many times have you wanted to kill Scotty or three shiploads of Klingons? If these probes are not allowed to continue on their unpredictable and potentially disasterous courses into deep space, many more worthy victims will go un-killed and continue to annoy us well into the next generation !

Let the bacteria live!

[Doppler00]

So essentially, they are going to crash a multi-million dollar spacecraft into Jupiter because they are afraid that a lifeform from Earth would actually be successful on Europa? What is the point of this? Why not let the satellite survive and continue taking photos and measurements? NASA is becoming obsessed with searching for life instead of exploring or finding new planets.

If bacteria could survive and thrive on Europa, I would think of this as a great achievement not as pollution.

Are you kidding?

[Rogain]

A mat of bacterial sludge on europa might be the only trace of our civilization.

Vietnam war

[Far�]

This theory ignored the fact that the villagers mostly despised the current economic system and their obscenely corrupt government, and therefore welcomed the VC as prophets of change, but ... never mind that.

Your theory also ignores the fact that the VC would murder anyone in those village who would be suspected of potentially not supporting VC. When a few american soldiers committed a murder, the journalists would make a national scandal - and rightly so, perhaps. But when the VC used murder as a normal day-to-day tool to control population, nobody seems to make a big deal of it. And then, journalists conclude that somehow the US were the "bad guys" in this war, and the VC the "good guys". Talk about racist double-standards!