Word: europa
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Mars is not the only place the new budget ships will visit. Last spring planetary scientists were buzzing over images returned by the Galileo space probe that provided evidence of a water ocean beneath a thin rind of ice on Jupiter's moon Europa. Where there's water, there's usually heat, and where there's water and heat, there could well be life. Sometime after 2000, NASA is hoping to launch a Europa probe that will orbit the Jovian moon at an altitude of 60 miles--about the same distance at which Apollo spacecraft used to orbit Earth...
...possibility of extraterrestrial life on the moons Europa and Triton, discussed in "Life in a Deep Freeze" [SPACE, April 21], seems very likely. Believe me, the prospect of finding it anywhere besides The X-Files is extremely thrilling. But don't you think the $200 million per ship could be put to better use--for example, in Third World countries? FATIMA ANSARI Lahore, Pakistan...
Though all such otherworldly erupting is dramatic, it amounts to little more than geological pyrotechnics. On Europa, however, tidal heating may have produced something truly remarkable. The formations Galileo spotted last week are definitely icebergs, though less jagged-looking than those found on Earth. Astronomers don't know why Europan ice and terrestrial ice would not fracture the same way, but they admit they have no experience with the kinds of cracks that are produced when an entire world is frozen over. More to the point, the bergs are small, rising just 300 to 600 ft. above the surrounding...
...While Europa may be the solar system's most promising Petri dish, it is by no means the only one. Saturn's Titan, larger than both Mercury and Pluto, has an atmosphere fully 60% denser than Earth's, forming a sort of photochemical haze that appears to be full of the stuff of prebiology. The problem is that Titan is cold. With temperatures hovering near -290[degrees]F and no signs yet of significant heat to drive chemical reactions, the moon could be awash in organics that are nevertheless unable to combine in biologically useful ways...
Even before Cassini's work begins and Galileo's ends, other ships could be on the way to join them in the outer solar system. NASA is tentatively planning several new Europa probes, including one that will photograph its surface and take radar soundings beneath its crust. If the radar picks up the telltale echoes of liquid water, another spacecraft would be sent to land on Europa and release a heated probe designed to melt through the ice layer and look for signs of life in the seas below...