Europa's Ice May Be Miles Thick

serutan writes "Space.com has an article detailing recent measurements of the shell of ice covering what is believed to be an enormously deep ocean on Europa, which could harbor life. The thickness of the ice -- many times the previous estimate -- poses a major obstacle to sending a lander that would burrow down through it to the water. [Seems like if they could make the probe kinda warm it would eventually sink through any amount of ice.]"

Comments

melting might not work

[selectspec]

Seems like if they could make the probe kinda warm it would eventually sink through any amount of ice

Good idea, but not necessarily. Ice packs tend to be dynamic flows with upwelling, downwelling and lateral movement. Metling say a few meters a day, would still take year or even more to reach the ocean below. In addition, the pressures below the ice pack will be immense once the liquid ocean is reached. Not to mention the giant pod eating monsters that probably lurk there.

Cornell Europa lander

[rwa2]

I used to share lab space with Cornell's Odysseus team. Essentially, they created a hot probe and tried to see how far it could burrow into a vessel of ice.

Unfortunately, I believe they didn't have too much luck. Their cylindrical probe would only melt the ice right under it. The walls would freeze back into place and hold it with friction (since ice expands, and as such would create pressure on the hull). I wonder if they would have been more successful with a raindrop-shaped design, where the pressure from the refreezing ice would actually help propel it downward. In any case, the high pressures involved would probably crush any payload.

The other problem was how to relay any information it harvested back to the surface, so it could be retransmitted to Earth. H2O blocks most radio waves pretty well, and stringing a wire all that distance suffers similar problems as the probe itself -- you'd have to keep it hot to keep moving.

Until then, we'll just have to rely on remote sensing...

Re:Doesn't it crack in places?

[Evil Pete]

The cracks once formed last for many many years. I don't offhand remember how many millenia they last for. But they are easily visible and well mapped. The crack forms, the water freezes over, but (the article argues) water should be forced into the crack due to tidal forces. Eventually, the crack will seal up but as I said it would take a long time.

Anyway, sounds like it's worth a shot.