Slashdot Mirror
Melting Europa
amigoro writes "After having contaminated Earth's Oceans, it seems that there are plans to send a probe drilling through Europa's ice sheet and explore the purported ocean below the crust. The plan seems to be to find Life there. But I wonder how long the time lag will be between the probe finding life, and a leak in the radioactive heater wiping all of it out."
Hippy.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
... what is it, 'lets all talk about Sedna' week in America, or something?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Jeez, can you get any more bias worked into your message?
Do your arms get tired from hugging those trees that tightly?
I don't care if we mess up their planet, I hate those arrogant Europeans.
True story.
In all seriousness, why does it matter? This sounds like a lot of money to spend on a "maybe." I've wondered this for a while now, and I'd like to hear someone explain why this search for life is so crucial. I feel there might be better ways to spend the money, and better ways or opportunities to discover life on other planets/celestial bodies.
I'd like to see the leaky probe that could rival Jupiter itself in bombarding Europa with radiation.
Awww, don't look so down. I'm sure there are plenty of other snide quips to be made about our foolish, short-sighted engineers wiping out Life As We Don't Know It.
Consider the possibility of a dihydrogen monoxide leak, for example...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
In the name of saving the bind sea turtle, all travel in the Arctic ahould be banned and any knowledge that was gained from past explorations should be forgotten.
Stay tuned for new sig...
2. What next? Drill Sedna for oil?"--There must have been life for there to be oil, you insensitive clod! Oh wait, maybe that is why they're so desparate to find evidence of life elsewhere!
Can I bum a sig?
Didn't they take interplanentary contamination pretty seriously on moon launches? Hopefully some of that ethic has been retained and mission planners will factor in concerns about destroying the very life they seek.
on that rock to fill a space cruiser!
Save me Jeabus!
but it would be nothing compared to the hatred these radioactive, mutated, super alge would have.
Had to be said, or, sadi, as appropriate.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Of course, its possible that the heater won't leak and that good science will be done.
There is risk inherent in every action and inaction.
This isn't news.
What is happening today, first we have the CA government getting out witted by a 14 year old. Now we have some moron bitching about drilling on another planets moon because it might contaminate a sulfer filled ocean with what is probably a very mild case of raditation from a probe. In addition the moon probably gets way more raditation from Saturn and the sun than what it is going to get from the probe.
What's next, is Spain going to elect a socialist/communist leader as head of the country. Oh yeah that already happened.
I really feel the end is near anybody else with me on this?
The people who frequent slashdot and rail bitterly over drilling for oil or the like. Do you guys know how much oil (let alone the tons of water) to build a single computer? Hypocracy. But I bet you feel good about yourself as whine and complain about how awful oil drilling/bush/whatever, while posting it on the internet.
This kind of shit makes me lose faith in mankind. It's very likely that we have what has been the Holy Grail of science in our relative back yards. What does humanity want to do with it? Poke it, prod it, and put it in a zoo. Why don't we try to NOT cause an extinction this time? How about we NOT tarnish a pristine environment? How about that?
Cry me a river. As has been stated a million times before, you can't help but change any system you are observing by just observing it. Now, I understand this is a pretty severe violation of a system that has never been touched by anything human made, but you need to break some eggs to make pancakes.
If you are so worried about the possible life under the crust on Europa, why not think about Earth for a minute! With all those microscopic organisms you are killing by just breathing, you should be ashamed of yourself! (Thank you Mr. Breathed...)
That would be some expensive exclusive bottled water.
Europa's acid ice fields definately don't make for any good landing places.
Apparently some recent research has indicated that the ice on Europa may be quite a bit thicker than initially thought. I'd post a link if I had one (but I don't) The thickness of the ice sheet may well be such that getting to the ocean below (assuming there is one) could turn out to be impractical, even using heat.
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
Isn't Europa in Jupiter's radiation belts? In otherwords, a tiny amount of radiation released from a probe would probably be nothing compared to what the "ocean" experiences everyday? (I could be way off base, though)
Doh!
RTFM!
Now, a planet named after a miserable women who marries her father's dog is fair game...
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
solar system first...then while we are heading out to the asteroid belt, and collecting minerals, we can send a science ship to all the interesting places in the solar system.
at least then we would have economically made the missions worth while during the development of the necessary tech.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Lets get them before they evolve and get us...
The amount of damage a single probe can make to an entire ecology is infinitesimal, it doesn't matter how radiactive it is. Come on, even a nuke will not destroy it! Biological contamination is a different matter, though...
Asteroids hit it all the time. So nothing bad will happen. We're just going to pretend that we are playing Space Invaders. Although I wonder if we'll find some ghosts. Thank god we'll have nuclear Power Pellets to protect us.
seriously man, where can you find gas for $1.50? I'd kill for that price!
Man, I wish we could mod stories. This one deserives at least:
- -1 Overrated,
- -1 Troll,
- -1 Redundant,
- -2 Flamebait
-- MarkusQand
Let's stop sending probes to the mid-ocean rifts as well. We didn't learn anything from those. Except for the piddly little fact that multiple complex life forms can develop and thrive without any direct energy input from the Sun.
Is it possible to mod an article itself as a troll/flamebait?
to discover and study life without somehow interacting with it (badly misquoted from The Lost World).
As -1, Flamebait? Or how about -1, Begging the Question? Or -1, Troll even? Yeah thats a good one - michael, YHBT!
How about instead, we have a decent discussion on the relative merits and costs of going to Europa and drilling in it to find Life.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
What part of "All these worlds are yours, execpt Europa. Attempt no landings there." don't they understand?
This sig intentionally left blank.
So let me get this straight.
You're chaining yourself to a Tree because we're considering sending 5kg of 'radioactive' isotypes to a watery grave inside a frozen planet's 60 mile think liquid shell whose volume is greater than all the earths oceans combined.
Hello bucket? This is water drop, make some room i'm coming in...
christ do you people sit around all day _LOOKING_ for ways to complain and be outraged?
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
. . .to leave Europa alone? I mean, all these worlds are ours! How greedy can we get? Waah!
This is far and away the dumbest "story" I have ever seen posted on this site. I'm taking this chance to express my outrage.
The submitter clearly has no understanding of anything going on here.
The article is pretty interesting though. Give it a read.
If it's not on fire, it's a software problem.
"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there."
mistake it for an attack? :P
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
/. is really starting to suck with all the editorial bias on these stories. I read the article and it didn't mention anything about raioactive leaks destroying the world or anything like that.
I was under the impression this was a discussion board for tech news.
How about we just post stories and then have a discussion about the story instead of pushing some agenda. Or maybe that is too complicated.
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/Main/Features/2000/Fall/sp ace_pic1.html
Europa is already highly radioactive. It's around 19 Mrads thanks to this thing we call Jupiter. Saying that a radioactive probe could potentialy destroy any life already there is akin to saying that my bottle of water could kill off life in the pacific. Its people like the poster of this story that the website about "dihydrogen monoxide" is meant to catch.
Hopefully, unless you have a LOT of dinosaurs on some tropical island park about to die off and lay in a mass grave.
Since when did drilling for oil become evil? Are there space caribou on Sedna?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
(Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics. 2003)
After we remove the irrelevant ("after having contaminated..."), the admission of insufficient research ("the plan seems to be"), the speculative and hysterical ("a leak in the radioactive heater wiping out all [ life ]"), and the lame attempt at humor ("drill Sedna"?), we're left with the following condensed version of the post:
there are plans to send a probe drilling through Europa's ice
to which I respond:
"yes, that's old news".
Imagine the shock of the scientists if, after melting through all those miles of ice, the sensors pick up a series of sharp tugs on the line... and then the probe stops transmitting entirely...
But I wonder how long the time lag will be between the probe finding life, and a leak in the radioactive heater wiping all of it out
The same time it would take for a drill in your head to find a brain.
Aren't we supposed to debate the issue, not the poster? Or were they too afraid nobody would take notice of a cause they feel so passionately about... Can we just get a straight recitation of the facts and not all the whiny editorialism, please?
Seriously >:(
"After having contaminated Earth's Oceans"
"But I wonder how long the time lag will be between the probe finding life, and a leak in the radioactive heater wiping all of it out. What next? Drill Sedna for oil?"
I wish the Slashdot editors could maintain at least the pretense of objectivity in which stories they post. I'm sure someone else submitted the story without the loaded commentary. I mean, even the sexing-up BBC managed to write a decent article about this.
If not that, perhaps it would be helpful for less frequent readers if editors disclosed their obvious biases: Green Party member, voting for ABB, never tires of SCO stories, Microsoft-hater, whatever.
Another option would be sub-sites for News for [insert political bent]-leaning nerds, stuff that confirms your beliefs.
And leave your personal politics out of this... Mr. Danson. Let us remeber that we are a product of the Largest ecological disaster are planet has ever seen. The mass extinction brought on by the Earth being hit by a medium size comet/asteroid/metor. She survived, I am sure Europa will survive a few 100 Kg metallic device soft landing on her surface.
Doesn't Europa lie in the Van Allen belts of Jupiter, so it is already getting large amounts of radiation?
No matter where you go, there you are. So Enjoy it.
Einstein (or someone) stated that it is impossible to measure anything without changing it.
I once dated someone who was fully against the exploration, or colonization, of Mars because she feared that we were given this planet and we've made a mess of it. She argued that we had no right to go to another planet that didn't belong to us and alter it in any substantial way. After a few somewhat lenghty discussions trying to pin down exactly what her issue was about, I discovered that the she felt that GOD had given us this planet and not Mars, hence we shouldn't mess up God's plans with Mars by stomping all over it with our oversized space boots.
I didn't agree. I've got a feeling this argument, while maybe not coming from a religious perspective, has a lot of the same concepts built in. Guess what, we humans, as a race, own everything in the solar system. It is ours to do with as we see fit... other planets are being wasted until we make full use of them for humanity as a whole. Until and unless I'm shown proof of life on another planet, and it would probably have to be a somewhat substantially high order of life, I'm going to argue that it's our position to decide the destiny of every bit of metal, gas and rock that's floating in orbit around our sun.
--
RumorsDaily
Oil on Sedna? On a dirty, utterly cold rock on the very edge of the Solar system? On a rock that even NASA hesitate to call a planet? Let me guess, you are the product of the US high school system with intellectual skills honed to perfection by watching Fox News?
Before allowing troll articles, please modify slashcode so we can mod them accordingly.
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
You could poison Europa's environment and possibly destroy any life down there!
...With DihydrogenMonoxide!
Think of all the DihydrogenMonoxide that would be released as a result of all this melting! It could be catastrophic!
-=Lothsahn=-
"What next? Drill Sedna for oil?"
Nah...we'd have to use all the oil we found just to fly back...of course, that's assuming that there were once dinosaurs on Sedna...pretty bold assumption considering we just found that damn thing..
why do I feel like I'm responding to a troll?
A goal is a dream with a deadline
This is yet another example of why NASA should make more use of Ask Slashdot. We could have helped create a better rover AND saved Europa!
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
But I wonder how long the time lag will be between the probe finding life, and a leak in the radioactive heater wiping all of it out.
That would be close to never. Europa isn't exactly like a small city like Nagasaki for instance. Even when we intentionally unleashed 2 radioactive devices at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, we failed to wipe out all life on the local chain of Japanese islands.
Even around Chernobyl 18 years later life seems to be going on as usual.
The reactors for spacecraft just aren't large enough to cause any large scale catastrophic wipe-outs.
I thought one of the arguments for crashing the Gallileo probe into Jupiter, was that they didn't want to leave it in orbit and risk having it crash into Europa, where there may be life. Deciding to drill a probe into Europa would seem to be just as risky with regard to contamination.
Forget about radation for a minute, and just think about the microbes that may still be on the probe from earth? Any chance these to be introduced onto Europa? Perhaps if there wasn't life before, we would introduce it.
In either case I find it odd that previous missions would go to extreme measure to avoid contaminating Europa and this mission plans to flat out do it on purpose.
We can strip mine the other planets later. Sheesh. As for life there-if it can't fight back who cares?
Yeah, let's all bury our heads up our asses for fear we might drop a cigarette butt on Europa...
"But I wonder how long the time lag will be between the probe finding life, and a leak in the radioactive heater wiping all of it out."
Ever notice how observations like these are intended to make one look more intelligent than engineers at space programs?
"Derp de derp."
If I was a scientist working on a probe to Europa, the least of my worries would be a backlash from environmentalists afraid that I contaminate that moon.
I'd be much more worried about people lobbying to stop me from launching at all, a la Cassini probe. Remember all that fuss?
Shouldn't the real issue here be the rocket blowing up in range of EARTH?? If it blows up on some distant moon that has little to know intelligent life, well, that we should worry about, but if it blows up here, well, why even discuss it?
Mod +5 Drunk
Like they do in terrestrial Europe and the
Americas?
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." -- Muad'dib
an ill wind that blows no good
Attempt No Landing There. Use Them Together.
Use Them in Peace."
Don't want to piss off those black rectangles!
As a graduate student in astrophysics (not planetary geology, which this would fall under), I think this is an overall good idea. (Agreed, the poster sounds a tad biased.)
There are a few points which I would like clarified by someone who is perhaps knowledgeable. For one, landing a spacecraft on Europa, where we have little knowledge of its atmospheric conditions, will be a formidable challenge. (We've lost many Mars-intended missions due to that.) How can we plan for that?
Secondly, I don't think it's known how deep the ice goes? Is there a plan for if the ice is a foot thick? How about 10 feet? How about 1000?
Next, can we still transmit a signal back if we have to take a probe that far underwater?
Notwithstanding a Europan shark eating the probe, I think there are some serious scientific reasons to be concerned about the search for life on one of the solar system's most likely candidates -- and we should ask ourselves if we're taking the best approach for a multi-hundred-million dollar mission?
That probe looks huge! What is that, revenge for all the anal studies the little green men have been doing to humans all these years?
Earth first! We'll mine the other planets later!
FreeBSD for the impatient.
Why aren't we using this same tech to explore our own oceans a bit more? With the locality of specific forms of life, we could easily miss a few microbes on a foreign planet if we only search in one spot. We still haven't explored our own oceans to discover the secrets and new life that may yet still be there... ...if we haven't killed them by radiation yet.
the editors let in these kind of story submissions just because its a slow news day and watching us all get riled up and keeping ourselves on our toes checking up facts entertains them?
Try not to let life get in the way of living.
can someone tell exactly which probe contaminated our oceans, as the submitter seemed to imply?
And the comments reflect the trolling nature of the story. I don't think there has been one supporting post or anyone who really is worried about toxic leaks on a moon of a distant frozen planet that may or may not contain liquid water let alone life.
It is really frustrating to hear this kind of ignorant nonsense masquerading as legitimate concern. The natural sources for radioactivity on Europa vastly outweigh anything man could introduce with this probe plan. The last thing we need is junk science wielded by knee jerk eco-fanatics over other Solar System bodies without justification. Stick to torching SUVs pretending you're having a positive effect instead of a negative one & leave the brain trust to get on with the difficult process of rational thought and exploring the Solar Sysetem.
Hey, I've got intelligence that shows that those microbes could evolve into sentient tool using creatures then develop and deploy weapons of mass destruction in a mere million years. If we wait to know for certain the first warning may be a mushroom cloud on Earth. Can we take that risk? We have to strike first!
Search 2010 Gen Con events
All these Worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landings there.
Utter nonsense. We have every right to explkre for life beyond Earth, and no obligation to preseve anything, anywhere.
Peopole like Amigoro need to stop apologizing for being alive. People are more important than animals.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
All These Worlds Are Yours Except Europa. Attempt No Landing There. Use Them Together. Use Them in Peace.
Help! Help! I'm covered in rediation! Get it off!.....
...What? What do you mean sunlight is radiation?
They'll always fear what they can't understand.
I can't believe a self-purported geek site like slashdot would stick such fear-mongering into an article.
Clear, Dark Skies
The news post is such a typical anti-science message that it'd be funny if it weren't so depressing that people can be so stupid. The message obviously shows somebody who is against things they don't understand. They're probably the kind of person who opposes GM food not because it is unsafe, but because it has the word "genetic" in it.
From CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/21/galileo.
Yup... We're going to be battling radioactive superbugs from Europa!
I HATE HIPPIES!
Since NAFTA has been such a smashing success, the government is looking for new places to send American jobs. A moon of Jupiter seems like a good place to start: not too far from home, no organized labor, no pesky Judeo-Christian holidays to hamper production. Outsourcing at its finest!
Because it is several orders of magnitude less expensive to mine those same materials right here on Earth.
If it's not on fire, it's a software problem.
Did you see that probe thing? Looks like a diant dildo. We get to a moon, and the first thign we do is have sex with it. (Yeah, we drilled the moon too)
The male sex drive is at least as big as the solar system.
I'm just glad we have no plans to do it yo Uranus.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
those snotty Europeans are all anuses! (Anii?!!)
As for life there-if it can't fight back who cares? I don't know -- if they are truly TASTY little aliens, we should try to preserve them as a food source...
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
As many have pointed out, I don't think we have to worry about radiation since Europa is in Jupiter's radiation belts.
However, what we do have to worry about is the primitive fish-like people of Europa worshipping our probe like a god! Think of the cultural havok we could wreck on their primitive society!
Meet new and interesting forms of life... and kill them.
Stephan Ulamec is an anagram for
A SEA PUNCH MELT!!!
C'mon, folks! This is proof positive that Bu$h is behind this!
He WANTS TO PUNCH AND MELT THE SEA!!!! We're all gonna die!!!
now where did I put that tinfoil hat?
Saxamaphone!
Yeah, you all laugh and tell your jokes - but in another context this stuff becomes the basis of your favorite episode of Star Trek.
Or is it just my recent change from right wing news to left wing news has made me more aware of it. From my perspective it seems like an "anti-radioctive probe movement" has suddenly sprung up, along with a somewhat sensible "anti-militarization of space movement" which unfortunately seems to be intertwined with it.
Look, let's say there are tasty fish on Europa. If we never send probes there, how will we be able to send them back to Earth to be filleted and served in a nice basil sauce in Thai restaurants, answer me that?
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
He was talking gallons, you foreign dog!
Bloody petroterrorist. We'll be back for you later!
This is interesting because our lecturer at McGill just finished telling us about how they did this in Antarctica 10 years ago. The success of that mission in proving that life exists under 3 metre ice sheets (on lakes) in the McMurdo Dry Valleys is one of the reasons why this mission to Europa is planned. Great pictures of my lecturer (Andersen) in Antarctica are here. The video footage is again even more impressive - whole unadulterated sea beds of stromatolites and other cyanobacteria like nowhere else on earth.
I can not think of a more stupid idea than strapping a nuclear reactor to a rocket and blasting it through our athmosphere. Can you possibly rate our chances alongside the shuttle record with all the safety checks that go with human cargo. so call me a tree hugger - makes no difference. You will be dead too.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
Finding a significant supply of water off the planet is
a very big deal. Aside from the "is there life" question
(that the press just loves) is the more important issue of
use by human colonists. When you do the math on
off-planet colonies, by far the biggest cost is supplying
water. If we can find a usable supply that is already outside
our atmosphere, then we are a big leg up.
You can have any planet, but leave Europa alone.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
If one steps back and looks at interplanetary exploration a bit more generically, it is actually quite similar to early man hopping from continent to continent populating (or should we say "infecting") each land mass along the way with humanity.
Migration is something organisms do. Plain and simple.
Truthfully, I'd be more concerned about ET organisms messing up our environment more than the other way around.
If it can't withstand human curiousity, it doesn't deserve to exist!
And on a more serious note -- could the person who posted this story have been any more cynical?
Crap, you just rubbed my face in how old I am.
*sigh*
This site has gotten to be SO LEFTIST as to be almost ridiculous. Actually, it's really kind of funny... It's almost to the point that their isn't even a pretense of balance...
hard core geek-ware
"I hate you, Dave."
...how someone can use God as a excuse to do or not do something. Maybe God wants us to figure out how to terraform Mars? Maybe that's why we built all this machinery to find out what the hell is on there. Perhaps the knowledge of transporting between planets makes us Gods? Who knows.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Is it possible to post a story without drowning it in your syrupy ideological flavor of the month?
It you just think about it, it is plain stupid to enter the only extraterrestrial possible source of life we know in the universe, because we could contaminate, and kill them. We are not talking about genocide, this is the possible death of another earth, much more than wiping a civilization off.
I think we should leave them alone, at least until we know enough about ourselves and our bacteria/viruses/fungi to do this in a safe way.
Now we are just starting to know some things, wait another couple hundred years, and it could be done more responsibly. We are talking about wiping our only companion in the universe, if there is one.
The problem with CA, is just one more bit that shows that the US needs to rethink their government choosing skills.
Spain, well, I wouldn't call the PSOE socialist, much less communist, they had the government for many years and were kind of centrist, although trying to implement a social democracy. T
hat is not to say that socialist or even communist ideas are bad, that is so only in the US, in the rest of the world is just one way to look at things, as good or bad as any other. Just because the US was in war with some communist countries, that doesn't make the ideology bad,even if there have been few good implementations. Cuba for example is a place where people have an acceptable standard of living, much better than what is average in the world, if you take into account the unfair trade restrictions they are subject to because of the US.
I'm sorry, there was nothing I could do.
Glog!
I can't see how complaining that a story is biased is even *slightly* insightful. C'mon.
But I wonder how long the time lag will be between the probe finding life, and a leak in the radioactive heater wiping all of it out."
This is a question that's not interesting to scientists. It's not even slightly provocative. Look, after decades of antinuke literature and activism, this is the best shot you can take? Try arguing against nuke space probes on moral grounds, or out of concerns for people on the ground.
Obviously, we don't let real science be conducted by activists. And judging from this tepid attack on nuke space probes, we likely shouldn't let activists like yourself get involved in policy issues either.
Altogether, an F- grade. It's not even a good troll.
And that is "anti-science". Exactly. It is anti-thought, anti-rationality and just plain stupid. Your opinion is clearly the result of thick, foggy ideology.
The Big Evil Corporations also make the tools to help your body beat cancer, fight infections, help the crippled become mobile once again, and so on. Should we not trust those as well. Big Evil Corporation made it possible to post your message to the world. Will you be leaving the Internet?
I see no reason for it given that organic food tastes just great and has worked fine for thousands of years
All you've done here is demonstrate your total and complete ignorance on the topic. Maybe you should educate yourself on the issue with something other than political manifestos. And next time you hop and skip down to the local grocery store, realize that a lot of the world can't do that, and would love to have some crops engineered to gorw in their own backyards and resist the local threats.
--- Ban humanity.
Please whine over there about ecological disasters, and how bad we are as a species, etc...
Except Europa.
Attempt no landings there.
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
... are shown here
what is stopping all of that water firing the probe out of its hole at some massive velocity (anybody for a game of golf)...
Why does the general public always seem to have
such a willful ignorance when it comes to
nuclear power?
Yo, Buckwheat. Listen up!
YOU ARE BATHED IN RADIATION AT THIS VERY MOMENT.
Somehow you seem to survive that indignity. Odd,
isn't it?
One nuclear powered probe going awry on Europa
would not have the REMOTEST CHANCE of killing
all the hypothetical life there.
The Cassini probe now about to enter Saturn's
orbit would not have "poisoned everyone on the
planet!" if it had exploded on launch.
Deal with it. And FGS grow up.
the real risk is that microbes could theoretically be transported to europa and corrupt the data they study..
I hear that Europa is full of dihydrogen monoxide
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
just miles from your doorstep, hundreds of men are given weapons and trained to kill. The government calls it the "army", but a more alarmist name would be -- "The Killbot Factory."
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
Biogenic assumes that living things die, are deeply buried in the crust, rot, and in so doing create various hydrocarbons. Abiogenic assumes that primordial material from the creation of the planet are cooked and rise into the crust. This theory posits that biological microfossils found in petroleum are leeched from the crust by the flow, rather than being one of the byproducts of biogenic rot.
Kooks like J. F. Kenney grasp at old research by a few Soviet geologist to claim that abiogenic reserves are being constantly replenished more quickly than even our current rate of extraction(1).
The vast majority of geologists would say that while research confirms that abiogenic formation of gaseous alkanes can take place in the Earth's crust, a comparison with the isotopic signatures of economically important gas reservoirs around the world suggests that abiogenic production is not a globally significant source of hydrocarbons (2).
Luke, help me take this mask off
water (and so ice) can stop radiation quite effectively
Yeah, but that also means that a world like Europa that may be made up almost entirely of water, and has much more water than all the oceans of Earth put together, has to be extremely immune to radioactive damage.
I don't know why envrionmentalists aren't happer that NASA is removing radioactive material from this planet. I mean, a lot of people complain about it, but only NASA is actually doing something about it.
But I wonder how long the time lag will be between the probe finding life, and a leak in the radioactive heater wiping all of it out.
Much in the same way that Chernobyl wiped out all life on Earth.
Oh, wait. We're still here.
The remark about the radiation reminded me of the recent story about the Lunokhod vehicles (the Russian moon rovers). I found the use of Polonium-210 for heating the rovers very interesting.
Some intersting stuff about Polonium-210 on Wikipedia:
"half a gram quickly reaching a temperature above 750 K" (476.85C)
"This isotope is an alpha emitter that has a half-life of 138.39 days."
"...nearly all alpha radiation can be easily stopped by ordinary containers and upon hitting its surface releases its energy..."
BTW Did anyone else see the picture of Susi the "melting probe"? lmao I wonder where they got the idea for the design of that! Does it vibrate too?
hat is not to say that socialist or even communist ideas are bad
...
Of couuurse...Socialism is good! Just see how it worked in Nazi Germany (National Socialism), Stalinist Russia (60,000,000 killed), China (forced abortions, Tianamen Square, murder/imprisionment of an entire intellectual class), North Korea (mass starvation, enormous reeducation camps, policies of killing 3 generations of a dissenter's family), Cabodia (1/3 of the entire population killed), and your precious Cuba (journalists imprisioned for 20 freaking years for being mildly critical of the government, and so utopian that people will risk 90 miles of shark infested waters in a boat made from a freaking car to escape), East Germany (oh right...the wall was put up to keep people *out* of East Berlin),
You idiot. Mush-headed dimwits such as you make me sick. Socialism/communism is *always* bad, unless you can provide me with a moral justification for making an individual a slave of the state.
Alien 1: What happened?
Alien 2: Someone set down us the probe!
Probe: How are you gentlealiens? All your worlds are belong to us. Including Europa.
Alien 1: What you say?
Probe: You have no chance to evolve make your time.
Probe: HA HA
As always, the real risk is that we'll contaminate Europe with microbes.
One of the points I make, when people bring up the topic of alien organisms contaminating Earth, is that Earth really has pretty advanced microbes. Microbes on Earth have had 4.5 billion years to practice infesting each other and the various high-level organisms. Likewise, our immune systems have had slightly less time to practice fighting off such microbes. All this evolution makes them pretty advanced.
Granted, Europa has had the same time to work as we have, but it hasn't had as large a playground, and most likely none of the organisms there have gone up against a mammalian immune system anytime during their evolutionary development. Nor have they gotten the chance to try to survive in as many different environments.
How is this on topic? Any organisms we send over there will wipe the floor with any Europan microbes they find. This may be a giant leap for Earthling microbes, but it's probably bad for science.
Same thing goes for Mars and elsewhere.
Upstairs Dog, Downstairs People.
I think it is a conscious decision. Look at many of the highly-ranked posts. They give good information about WHY the slanted opinion is way off the mark. Those posts would be unnecessary if the submitter didn't include the oddly inflammatory comments in the submission. If the story was just posted, I am sure there wouldn't be much to comment on.
So the editors pick a submission that will more likely generate responses. Because without well-informed responses, Slashdot pretty much ceases to exist. If there isn't an inflammatory submission, they usually just add their own comments that are sure to generate at least a few rebuttals.
Just keep it in mind, and watch. You'll see the pattern.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
When Jane initially met Tarzan of the Jungle, she was immediately attracted to him, and during her questions about his life, she asked him how he had sex.
"Tarzan not know sex," he replied.
Jane explained to him what sex was.
Tarzan said, "Oh... Tarzan use hole in trunk of tree."
Horrified, she said, "Tarzan you have it all wrong, but I will show you how to do it properly." She took off her clothes and laid down on the ground. Here" she said, "you must put it in here!"
Tarzan removed his loincloth...stepped closer with his huge manhood and then gave her an almighty kick right in the crotch.
Jane rolled around in agony for what seemed like an eternity Eventually she managed to gasp for air and screamed, "What in the Hell did you do that for?!"
"Tarzan check for bees."
There are certainly some legitimate concerns, but perhaps attempting to show a little more open-mindedness in writing the stories might be more conducive to reasonable discourse.
For instance, rather than phrasing questions about the effects of RTGs in a deliberately scary way ("I wonder how long the time lag will be between the probe finding life, and a leak in the radioactive heater wiping all of it out."), one could ask what the expected lifetime of the RTG vessel would be under the expected temperature and pressure conditions, and what effect the leak of radioactive material from a comparable RTG could cause in the Earth's oceans.
Since RTGs launched on spacecraft are designed to withstand catastrophic uncontrolled reentry into the Earth's atmosphere without breaking up and distributing radioactive material, I would expect that they should last a very long time in conditions they would encounter on Europa. However, I'll be the first to admit that I don't have any solid information.
If we knew the expected containment lifetime, and the composition and mass of the radioactive material, we could make a reasonable guess as to the answer to the second question. But bandying about phrases such as "wiping all of it out" does not promote any reasonable analysis.
That's not to say that we shouldn't have some degree of healthy skepticisim.
Poster is a whacko he takes is cues from Jack-o.
Seriously, get a life! Really, go outside and look at the world, instead of complaining about what you heard was happening from your intarweb terminal.
Do the Europans use Linux?
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
or if it contains a nuclear bomb that detonates and vaporizes everything within 10 miles
Sounds fine, until the Sea People decide to return a 'probe' of their own ;-)
Thats an incredibly negative attitude to have. Isn't the possibility of finding liquid water and possibly life outside of that on our own planet worth a little investigation? What makes you so sure this "radioatcive heater" will break open anyway? You've set yourself up for attacks by opening the whole article summary with "After contaminating Earth's oceans..." You make it sound like the people who want to explore and learn are just looking for an interplanetary trash dump.
Wipe out all Europan life with a single probe? With some billions of cubic miles of Europan ocean to dilute any possible leakage?
Maybe, if the Europans, living all together in one small colony, discover the leaking probe and take it home to worship or something.
"A worthy cause has never been harmed by the truth" - Gandhi
The Sun! This killer source of radioactive is throwing off billions of tons of radioactive material every single day! Little known facts:
continuously destroying our ozone layer!
causes 47,000 cases of cancer every year!
single greatest contributor to global warming!
I for one think we should stand together and protest this environmental catastrophe that we've all been ignoring for far too long.
Sincerely,
Marty Morlock
The meek shall inherit the earth, in 3 by 6 plots. - Lazerus Long
WHAT IF the non-nuclear powered probe malfunctions and crashes, killing the only organisim on the planet? What if it lands successfully... On said organisms?? What if while taking samples it destroys that organism? What if it has to drill through ice, drilling through the very thing we're trying to discover?
Yeah, don't you sound silly?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
...anything that survives being blasted into space, travel half the solar system, survive reentry and the drilling down to water, revive itself and take over the place, all of which without any intentional assistance to keep it alive on its journey, deserves it.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I am very worried about the radiation a probe could produce on Europa becouse any amount of radiation created by man would of course be far greater then the radiation Jupiter produces or the sun or even cosmic radiation produced by the universe.
Nasa decomtaminates everything it sends to other planets, they make sure they are as sterile as possible so they dont affect the planet or its possible inhabitants in anyway.
I saw a documentary which talked about this, on the BBC, several years ago - it was on that lake under the ice that's been cut off from the rest of the world for a few million years.
They were talking about sending a probe to melt down to it - and also made reference to the fact that this would be a perfect test run for a similar mission to Europa.
Intruiging that they actually got the idea to (maybe) fly (sink?), however.
fortune -o
Yes we do.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
Will it have the terminator gene built in?
Doesn't exist. Monsanto terminated the project.
Will it be producing its own roundup to dump into our water table?
uh, no? why would a plant generate a herbicide that would kill itself?
Will it kill people with peanut allergies?
Will peanuts? This is why we have these people called 'geneticists' and 'doctors' who study allergenic compounds to ensure that what is grown doesn't affect people with certain allergies.
Will it have a super strong resistance to antibiotics?
wtf? a plant resistant to antibiotics? do you know what these words mean?
Corn that produces its own pesticide is very bad - it will be laying down roundup when it isn't needed in an effort to put as much crap into the water table and promoting resistance at the same time.
First of all, roundup is a *herbicide*. It kills *plants* not insects. Second, did you know there are lots of plants out there which generate their own natural pest poisons? Usually they're directed toward one particular pest. By combining these genes into say, corn, you now have directed pest killing inherent in the corn. It doesn't get into the water table anymore than the plant it was spliced from does!
This means you don't have to spray general pesticide chemicals (which kills *all* insects even the good ones and stays in the environment for years) on the crops.
-
Seriously. Whenever I see a really bizarre article posting, especially a bizarre editorial commentary afterward, I know when I look under the headline that it will say "michael."
Remember that one time he was TYPING IN ALL CAPS TO FLAME INTEL FOR NOT MENTIONING A COMPETITOR IN THEIR 64-BIT CHIP PRESS RELEASE? Immaturity.
At last! Someone who sees the value of enlightened self-interest as ethical guideline. Thank You, Sir!
This comment does not exist.
Gosh, you're right. I'd much rather believe what some guy named Paul wrote many centuries ago (a.k.a. the Bible), and take that for the absolute, unquestioned truth, even though much of it flies right in the face of our knowledge of the laws of physics. People are so dumb...
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
Come on gang, let's rein in the hyperbole a bit, shall we?
Last I looked, no one has actually been to Europa, and no one is positive just what the oceans there are made of. Since nobody knows, the question of how these oceans may, or may not react to the introduction of a foreign object/element is valid. The answers will be relative to the conditions presented upon an actual visit. Who's to say how a Europan ecosystem might react to any contaminant? Scientists should be asking these questions.
BTW. The bucket analogy is flawed. Sure a drop of water in a bucket is probably harmless. But a drop of water carrying Ebola is most definitely not.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
then it is damn well worthy of being refuted and mockery.
Whats sad is the public is woefully misinformed about GM crops. They're allowed to believe ridiculous untruths about them like GM corn is a superplant which can spread and never be stopped (utter nonsense, no human sustenance food crop can live for long without human care, we've bred them that way for thousands of years. juicy and tasty means nutrient demanding and very weak in the wild!) among other things.
I'm all for the public on being educated. Unfortunatly european MP's are more keen on scaring the public for political points.
As for 83% of the UK public, if we asked 83% of them if we should ban dihydrogen monoxide because it kills thousands per year, should it be done?
-
the FDA has just as strict regulations regarding GM foods as they do any drug. It takes years and yes, billions, to get approval for use.
.01% of the US population was allergic to. Because of this the FDA only approved it for animal feed and not human consumption.
Take for example the infamous Starlink corn. It is GM modified and contained a compound *similar*, though not exactly, to a allergenic compound that about
Then the accidental human test when some managed to get into taco bell shells later determined that it was, in fact, harmless.
That was several years ago. The science of allergies is rapidly advancing due to our growing knowledge of genetics. And it still requires strict FDA approval which takes years.
-
First: when people say "The Theory of Foo" what they properly mean is "The Hypothesis That Foo".
Second: Evolution is a process, not a hypothesis. It has been applied in Computer Science, postulated in astrophysics and biology, etc. Natural Selection is a scientific hypothesis.
Third: Hypotheses are not directly verifiable. You don't go out and look for gravity to try and figure out whether Newton was right. Hypotheses are used to generate verifiable predictions, and the more predictions that are verified to be correct, the more correct the hypothesis that generated them is take to be.
Natural Selection generates predictions about disease resistance, fossil records, etc. So far, all of the significant predictions have been verified to be correct. How many of Creationism's have been? Oh right, it's a historical claim, not a hypothesis.
Doing stuff in space is a high-return investment in technology. Unfortunately, you can't just tell people "do stuff in space", or they won't do anything interesting. So the managers come up with arbitrary goals, like getting to the Moon, or looking for life. That way the scienticians have real goals to work towards, they build technology, and we all win!
NASA's managers seem to have decided that their arbitrary goals will mostly have to do with putting people in random places. The ESA has decided to look for life in random places. Both will yield different technological paybacks and it's pretty hard to make a value judgement between the two, don't you think?
Bah. Anyone who's read a comic knows that radiation causes superpowered mutations and endows the radiated with abilities beyond the norm. We should be less concerned about the potential to iradiate the planet and kill life, as opposed to the potential of creating killer race of hostile Hulk Ameobas that will end up conquering earth...
http://www.beanleafpress.com
ALIENZ or ALIENS How ever you say it ?
I think funny is more appropriate.
Marvin knew: "Think of a number, any number..."
the bacteria were introduced in the lab on earth. The "sterile conditions" simply weren't exactly that. At least this is what they've been saying for the last couple of decades.
Did you remember to put on your tinfoil hat before you posted that? Remember, they're always watching!
Marvin knew: "Think of a number, any number..."
This immediately reminded me of a favorite book as a child: Tom Swift (Jr) and his Atomic Earth Blaster1 2/aearth. html
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/37
Same idea, different planet.
I didn't realize obscure "The Pixies" references were flamebait. I think it was from Dolittle? I don't see the relevance though. Offtopic would be more accurate.
What is this obsession with life? Isn't it just some chemical process involving particular elements, one that humans as organisms just happen to have a particular affinity for?
This probe is merely a speck on a speck on a speck of the total matter that makes up this "untouched" moon. Even if it did kill off life it certainly isn't going to make any difference to Europa!
Suggested response: Get over it. The universe will go on pretty much as it always has even if we succeed in killing ourselves off.
TREPAN TEH EAR7H!!!!!1!
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Forgetting for a moment about trashing the poster's mentality or politics, and focusing instead on the actual STORY...
The idea of an ice-melting probe seems pretty interesting to me. I wonder how it would communicate with an orbiting mother ship or with a lander on the surface. Is it possible to use radio or something else through thousands of feet of ice? The article mentions the possibility of a spherical probe turning around and melting its way back up. It probably wouldn't have to be spherical -- they could turn it upside down by shifted ballast -- but anyway, does that imply that the probe would be incommunicado until it could return to the surface?
But I wonder how long the time lag will be between the probe finding life, and a leak in the radioactive heater wiping all of it out."
If we can make a reactor that can go up on a rocket, have the rocket explode half way up, and be able to recover the nuclear material from the reactor INTACT without having any of it spread around the world, then we can make a heater that WILL NOT LEAK.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
kuro5hin.org
Who's more confused, the ogre or the troll who responds, which BTW get a mod-bomb and a crack-joke up his ass?
;) )
Seriously, sheeple! Get on with the friggin' capitalist/democracy/protestant work ethic/confused drone-program already! Sheesh! Troll like you mean it; mebbi I(?)'ll tell you about them letters not included in the alphabet... (Thanks Grant
Oooh! Another reality show is on display at the altar! Sorry fellas, gotta go...
Considering the fact that Jupitor is bathing Europa in radioactivity, and that any life would probably thrive on radioactivity - the comment at the end of the blurb about wondering how fast an insignificant amount of radioactivity from a probe wiping out life on europa is pretty damned assinine.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
So a little radioactive battery is now powerful enough to wipe out life on a moon? Does he have any idea how silly the idea is?
That would be like expecting all of the radioactives that dentists use for x-ray machines, if they were all lumped together and dumped in the bottom of an ocean, to wipe out our life.
Radioactivity does not equal *bad* in all situations and places. We use it a lot more than people believe. The thermal-radiation batteries that NASA uses are about as safe as science can make them.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
get off your high horse, damn hippy!
Is the author of this topic serious? Are the editors on vacation?
First of all, the heat and radiation coming off a system like the one that might be sent to Europa is infinitely smaller than the daily amount of radiation and heat Europa takes from Jupiter itself. Even if the ceramic containment structures cracked or somehow allowed these heat elements to drop, they would generate watts, yes only watts of energy. There is NO CHANCE and I repeat NO FRIGGIN CHANCE that even the worst possible destruction of a Europa probe would melt more than a 3-6 inch hole in the ice cap as it decended.
It just sickens me that we are producing so many of these all-heart, and no-brain idiots from our schools. I can't imagine any person who isn't copmpletely stupid making the assumptions the author of this thread made. How hard is it to first read a little bit to see if the question is valid! We are becoming a nation of morons. In 50 years, the Chinese and Russian economies will be kicking our arse because we chose to let our kids know more about hip hop and Brittney's navel than how to read a book without pictures or memorize the perodic table. We are teaching creationism-as-science (intelligent design) in our schools and wondering why the rest of the world has no respect for us?
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
We could drill through the ice on europa to determine if there's life in the sea underneath.
We could drill through the ice in the antarctic to determine if there's life in the lake underneath.
Lake vostok, deep beneath the antarctic ice, is the only place (we know of) on Earth with life which has been entirely isolated from human interference. we don't even know if life exists in it.
Discuss.
actually, i suggest it is our responsibility to get ourselves the hell off this rock and leave the millions of other species the fuck alone.
Well I'm an amateur astronomer and although I don't think that type of progress can be stopped, I do tend to sympathise.
Realistically if you think about the history of the western culture that, today, dominates space exploration, it's very likely to result in a lot of plundering and abuse for personal (or possibly corporate) gain. This will be thanks to the relative lawlessness on another planet before any serious long term colony effort comes along and will be required to pick up the pieces.
Historically this is just what happens. Even if you discount the American colonials wiping out the Indians, Pizarro destroying civilisations in South America for his personal fortune, as well as the Brits beating up nearly every tribal culture they came accross in their conquest of the world, there's still the big impact of environmental damage that's caused by colonials making dramatic changes such as burning down all the forests so they can overfarm the land.
I realise that a lot of this will be inevitable, and obviously Mars is a bit different. But despite it's immediate irrelevance to easy human colonisation, Mars does have it's own environment that's has all sorts of interesting things about it. I would, for once, like to see a new place being valued for its existing qualities when it's first properly visited, instead of them all being turned upside down for short term profits of a select few, only to have future generations kicking themselves at what's later discovered to have been lost.
At least we should send a probe to Europa before whatever lurks under Europa's ice sends one to us. Think of it as an interstellar space race!
of course, non-GM crops are completely immune to cross pollination with other crops of the same species... right.
hint: within a single species there can be nearly endless varieties, all with very distinct and unique genetic characteristics -- not all of them desirable.
the legal arguments regarding cross pollination are stronger.
fact of life: nearly everything on modern farms for the past several centuries is GM. all domesticated animals, for example, are vastly different from their wild ancestors. nearly all major crops were GM before DNA was ever discovered.
Other melt-through proposals propose a tether that connects the melter to the lander on the Europan surface. The lander has a tried-and-true antenna for communicating information back to Earth. Problem solved.
[My apologies that this post contains no knee-jerk reaction to the submitter's polemics.]
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
Wait, I see a tree that needs a hug. See ya!
Be careful you don't get any of those nasty crotch splinters. Oh and you might want to check for bees first too.
I totally agree with you the only way socialism/communism *acutally* works is if the whole monitary system gets thrown out the window, and every body works for the common advancement of the human rase. Like that is ever going to happen, trading sheep is a monitary practice. Trading bread for fish is a monitary practice. It is never going to go away so communism and socialism is never going to work.
Plus I beleive if you feed a man he eats for a day, if you teach a man to fish he eats for his life. I don't beleive in giving money away, I beleive in teaching people skills so they can earn their own keep.
"After having contaminated Earth's Oceans..."
Honestly I don't get this. I'm not being a smartass and I know everyone took this to be some tree hugging statement. But that doesn't make sense. If you read the OP as it was written it seems that the probe is going to contaminate Earth's oceans and then go to work on a moon.
Why? I couldn't find anything in any of the articles I found on the topic that dealt with contamination anywhere.
What is the point/purpose of contamination of our oceans before the probe works on a moon? Please explain, some of us are not rocket scientists and don't fully understand how these things work.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
This is a great idea... You could end up with a fish with 3 eyes... A kind of superfish... If you will.
The Author, Michael, worries about poisoning the Europa biosphere with radioactive elements form the space probe power source.
It should be noted that the high energy particles from the Jovian radiation belts give a radiation dose that would be well in excess of anything except spots within the Radio Thermal generator itself. Like the bacteria found growing on spent reactor fuel rods, I bet any life form on Europa thinks lethal radiation for us is just a tickle. Dr. Null
When George Bush finds that red button, then we're in trouble.
Why the hell do the editors change the article after after a few postings criticize it? It makes the postings into non sequitors and pretty much scrambles the whole discussion, the whole thing turns into nonsense. Take the critisism to heart in regards to future articles, fine, but this revisionist history makes Slashdot look pathetic.
I am so bored with these kind of alpha-male wannabee reactions. The guy might sound like a whiner, but rather than debunk the guy's point with science and reasoned debate, Slashdotter's show their herd mentality.
I think nuclear power is a possible and attractive path towards providing clean, sustainable energy. I also think Biotech is part of our future. The problem is, rather than having a civilized debate, we polarize into "tree huggers" and "fascists". Personally, I want to be on the other side of folks like Monsanto and Haliburton.
To put the question differently, IS there any danger of nuclear contamination? In the very unlikely even that there are some kind of Jovian cetaceans swimming around down there, do we really want to introduce ourselves by dumping some kind of nuclear reactor into their ocean? Personally, I think the risks are probably acceptable, however, I don't think the guys down here at Johnson Space Center would cotton to some green skinned fucker dumping a nuclear reactor into the Galveston Bay.
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
and LO and BEHOLD, it did! I tried submitting this to other /. like sites, and they just lauged it off.
Long Live Slashdot
Nothing to see here
If you're going to quote a Pixies song, get it right.
If man is 5, if man is 5, if man is 5,
Then the devil is 6, then the devil is 6, then the devil is 6, then the devil is 6, then the devil is 6,
And if the devil is six then god is 7, then god is seven, then god is seven.
This monkey's gone to heaven.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
There is missing information you don't have that would explain it. :) It's really not important though. I know the lyrics well. Seen em live enought times.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Ah, sorry. I enjoy the Pixies, and happened to be listening to Doolittle at the moment, but I'm not a huge fan or know a whole lot about them.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
1. The nuke batteries on these things aren't that dirty; especially given how dirty Jupiter's own radiation field is. 2. Don't you think that the friggin' NASA scientists have THOUGHT about all the other issues? I'll give you a hint (having read some of the proposals) - THEY HAVE.
what is the bush angle?
"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landings there.".
No kidding Katz was fired? How about that. I blocked him shortly after he showed up and never looked back.
It's a strange feeling these days, some unexpected good news.
Otherwise, I agree with your journal comments, they're spot on.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
The Diving Ice Laboratory Data Observatory or D.I.L.D.O sent to probe europa has made a fatal flaw in it's navigation. Scientists examining the problem said that the extra instruments attached to the probe designed to make it vibrate and twist it's way through the icey extremities are probably responsible and not the nuclear heater that makes wires or batteries redundant.
The probe is reportedly heading for Uranus.
Data report from 30 km under Europa ice: Yup, life here! Europa report derived from Mars Viking analysis: Only Peroxides. Faulty experimental design!
"...while history is usually explicable it is often irrational" --Roger Spiller
Let's get this straight:
Man, the monolith is not going to like this.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
The problem I see is communicating with Earth from Europa. The use of submarine like transmitters is possible, but subs use extremely long wavelengths, which means it takes a LOT of time to transmit a message (as in an hour for a text message), making the transmission of any usefl amount of data mind-numbingly slow. Further, the more time it takes, the more likely it becomes that there will be enough interference to distort the signal (such as could be caused by the radiation belt from Jupiter....)
In my opinion articles should be moderated the same as comments. I'd give this article -1 flamebait.
I'm surprised that this post was rated funny, it turns out that the Church is in general supportive of experimentation on animals because they believe that Man was given dominion over all the (other) animals. Considerations of treating animals with mercy or kindness or reduction of suffering have no weight against their claim that we own 'em so we can do whatever we want.
For what it matters I'm an atheist and I support experimentation on animals. (Just try to reduce suffering to the extent possible). I'm also a gleeful carnivore. (I didn't get to the top of the food chain just to eat vegies!).
Yeah, but some people seem to have the feeling that it is safer to use vi or emacs to write a text than it is to use a tiny tiny tiny electromagnet and try to manually flip the bits on the HD into the right position.
Free as in mason.
I hear that Europa is full of dihydrogen monoxide
"Moreover, Zohner's [a 14 year old] target audience was ninth-graders [other 14-15 year olds], a group highly susceptible to allowing peer pressure to overwhelm critical thinking." (http://www.snopes.com/toxins/dhmo.htm)
And to think, some crazy nuts in California want to lower the voting age to include 14 year olds!? Geez!
Now that's "Leftism" (Unabomber's Manifest).
According to the article, the ice, which is kilometers thick, will re-freeze right behind the probe. I think it highly unlikely that the probe will be able to drag a tether along behind it, even if we could figure out how to include one that is several kilometers long.
Guns don't kill people -- people kill people.
But the guns seem to help a bit. (apologies to Eddie Izzard)
Why is it that left-wing people in the US are called liberals? At least here in the Netherlands, liberals are considered to be slightly to the right of the political centre.
Now, most (Western-) European political spectra are more "leftish" than the US spectrum, so actually our two definitions of "liberal" might refer to about the same ideas.
Funny though: if in the Netherlands you make an arrogant remark about the amount of taxes you have to pay (42%), of about immigrants or the like, you stand the change of being called a dirty liberal. Strange to see that the subjective meanings of "liberal" are so different in our countries.
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!
The best planet for humans to migrate is mars, if only it had some more water. And then we have this tiny moon with soooo much water!
:)
Is it possible that sometime in the future we might get europa out of orbit and crash it into mars?
Ok, i know i am talking nonsense...
except if Muslims blow it up first!!!
Those complaining are just the 10% Slashdot moron factor trying to make themselves feel needed and significant. Plus, I've noticed a trend among some posters, (usually newbies), who want story modification to become an option. Won't happen. (Better not happen. --The kids around here are dancing fast enough as it is trying to stay in the 'cool' circle without having to worry about which incoming data they should hide from. Pathetic. ALL new information is good.)
This new, "Me Too," phenomenon, (like Portman and Grits), too will pass.
-FL
"the probe finding life, and a leak in the radioactive heater wiping all of it out."
More like our radioactive probe spawns the mutation that initiates "life", and we're responsible. It calls us "god", inevitably produces a Europan Eric Clapton which it worships in our place, pronounces us "dead", and takes Earth by force, not even noticing our descendants here when it "Europaforms" our planet down the road. There goes the neighborhood.
--
make install -not war
But I wonder how long the time lag will be between the probe finding life, and a leak in the radioactive heater wiping all of it out.
That's just silly. Europa will undoubtedly have its own sources of radioactives, and the hypothetical biosphere under the ice is hundreds of cubic kilometers in volume. The amount of radioactivity one probe could release would produce a minor localised accident, probably much smaller than local vulcanism.
Which is a pity, because it misses a more important point - biological contamination. Unlike radioactivity, viruses and bacteria could grow if the medium under the ices provides a suitable environment. This would certainly contaminate any pre-existing life with earth-type life, and possibly wipe it out. I think that the probability is small - but that is just an uniformed guess. It is very important that this be discusses in a very open forum before any such probe is sent. Total certainty is impossible, but we must reduce the probability of contaminating Europa to a very, very small value.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Sickness and disease can start propagating with only one individual infected.
There are so many cases of recent health scares that I will not even bother mentioning them.
If you the wrong virus/bacteria in the wrong place at the wrong time you can wreck havoc of planetary proportions.
Here in Earth the relative isolation of the landmases is an insurance against global wide infections.
In a sea world, one has to wonder if things would not be different.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Forget bias. I will settle for a sentence that makes any sort of sense.
Many torpedos and missiles are wire guided and for a very long range. The wire is just very thin. It would actually be almost better if the ice froze around the wire and protected it...
This is my sig.
God-damn tree-hugging hippie crap!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Dear Idiot,
How big is the nuclear power supply? I believe the standard units are on the order of a few kilos. How much of, say, all the ice in Antarctica could you melt with that?
mark "Space is big. Space is really, reall,
I mean, REALLY BIG...."
"I wonder how long the time lag will be between the probe finding life, and a leak in the radioactive heater wiping all of it out."
And why not wipe out life on other planets? We are good at it.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Ever read Malcom X?
Then you would know that the etymology is wrong. Hippie were what me might call wiggers, or Vanilla Ice types. White people who talked "hipper" then hip black people. Hence Hippies.
Lots people are idiots. In fact, 99% of humanity doesn't have the sense of a turnip.
many are scientists,many are a thousand times more clued up on this than you.
So you're one of those who think scientists are devoid of agendas and ideology? Dumbass.
Yet still you believe them all to be 'dogs'.
No, I said caring what ideologues think is like caring what dogs think. Try again after your reading and comprehension skills advance from the first grade.
Do you really think you are so intellectually superior to everyone around you?
No, I *know* that I'm intellectually superior to most people. Most people these days are ideologues who'd whore themselves for pennies, and have world views constructed entirely of myth, lies and fantasy.
--- Ban humanity.
Some of us just have the knack.
Oh, I nearly forgot: dumbass. :-)
--- Ban humanity.
....melt Europa with you
As it melts its way through the ice, it's unreeling from its tether (rather than dragging a tether which is unreeling from the lander)
Think of a wire-guided missile or torpedo, the spool of control wire is on the projectile, not the launching station.
The pH value of Europa's oceans, if I recall correctly, are about 0.
0!
Combined with - Pervasive radiation for millions of years, crushing pressures beneath miles of rock, the volume of liquid being dealt with, the radically shifting temperatures assuming Europa has a molten core, and once again, a pH value low enough to actually make any nearly probe dissolve after one dip, means that even IF they use a radioactive heater, it sure as hell won't do much.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
What do they teach you in school??
You don't need to get rid of money to have a socialist country, that would fit communism.
Anyway, the ideals should be embraced, if not he methods, and I find that they are rejected just by their name.
Anyone who talks about to sharing anything is called communist, as if sharing was the bad part of communism. The bad part of communism is that people are easily corruptible when resources are lacking, and it is more efficient right now to use a system where the basis is that everybody will behave like an individualistic prick.
That lack of resources doesn't have to be forever. Capitalism might have brought us (especially you in the US) here, through difficult times, and once we have enough resources for everyone, we could change to a more developed way of living.
If Thomas Gold or Dyson want to speculate that because the outer planets are lousy with methane, etc, then an inner rocky planet like Earth is sweating out hydrocarbons by the metric kiloton every day, they can be my guest. However, until they stop making lay errors like mistaking oil seepage from nearby steam injections for abiotic petroleum reservoir refills, I don't find it a theory that a roughneck can bank on. Your mileage may vary.
Luke, help me take this mask off
You wanna join the 13 Oner club?