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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."
I just wish mankind could be this careful with its native planet.
(mod me as you will...)
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!)
This is the place where you write something that will make you seem like a complete idiot.
We were warned not to touch Europa.
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.
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
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.
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
It's official. Most of you are morons.
We can strip mine the rest later...
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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
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.
...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.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
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?)
Is it too late to make this load of bacteria a little more intelligent?