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Thread: Europa

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    NASA | Europa: Ocean World

    Published on Dec 25, 2014

    Scientists think there is an ocean within Jupiter's moon Europa. NASA-JPL astrobiologist Kevin Hand explains why scientists are so excited about the potential of this ice-covered world to answer one of humanity's most profound questions.

    Transcript:

    The search for life beyond Earth begins with understanding life on our home planet.

    And that story, the story of life on Earth, may have begun in our oceans. And that's because, of course, if we've learned anything about life on Earth it's that where you find the liquid water you generally find life.

    So what if I told you that there is an ocean out there beyond Earth? An ocean in our solar system that has been in existence for billions of years. It's an ocean that is perhaps ten times as deep as Earth's ocean. It's an ocean that is global and may contain two to three times the volume of all the liquid water on earth. It's an ocean that exists beneath the icy shell of Jupiter's moon Europa.

    So how do we think we know that Europa's ocean exists? Well, it's a combination of using telescopes on the ground and having spacecraft that have flown by Europa and collected data about the surface, about the interior structure, and about the magnetic field around Europa. And a combination of those data sets leads us to a high degree of confidence that this global liquid water H2O ocean is there today and it's been there for much of the history of the solar system.

    We used to think that in order for a world to be habitable you had to be at just the right distance from the sun or whatever your star was such that you could have a liquid water ocean on the surface. Now along with liquid water life as we know it needs two other key stones. The first is the building blocks for life, the stuff you find in rocks, and the second is some form of energy to help power life.

    And here's where Europa is a real game changer. It is far far out from the sun and yet it's got this liquid water ocean, and the reason that Europa has liquid water is because it's orbiting Jupiter and the tidal tug and pull causes Europa to flex up and down and all that tidal energy turns into mechanical energy, which turns into friction and heat that helps maintain this liquid water ocean beneath an icy shell.

    Along with helping maintain liquid water, we think that tidal energy may also allow that ocean to interact with rocks on Europa's sea floor, and it may even give rise to things like hydrothermal vents, which could help provide, not just the building blocks for life, but also the energy for life.

    The question of whether or not life exists beyond Earth, the question of whether or not biology works beyond our home planet, is one of humanity's oldest and yet unanswered questions.

    And for the first time in the history of humanity we have the tools and technology and capability to potentially answer this question. And, we know where to go to find it. Jupiter's ocean world Europa.

    Undersea footage provided by John Delaney, University of Washington

    Release Date: November 21, 2014

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    Europa-Explorer: AUV Leng fully autonomous mission

    Published on Aug 16, 2016

    In this video, the Leng AUV undergoes an fully autonomous test mission in the saltwater basin of the DFKI Robotics Innovation Center. This mission is analogous to a potential mission in the ice-covered ocean of Jupiter's moon Europa. The vehicle undocks from the IceShuttle and then searches for gliders which act as acoustic navigation aids in a future mission. Following this, the AUV descends by modifying its buoyancy and gliding. Then, the vehicle searches the bottom for a black smoker. Finally, following an ascent (not shown), the vehicle docks again at the IceShuttle to transfer data. The robot-view images seen throughout the video is from data transferred at the end of the mission. This is a fully autonomous mission, meaning that the vehicle was not being remote controlled. Low-Bandwidth communication (Acoustic Modem) was reporting vehicle status information.

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    Europa-Explorer: mission scenario

    Published on Aug 16, 2016

    This video shows the mission scenario developed within the Europa-Explorer-Project at DFKI-Bremen, Germany. Looking for life in our solar system is of great interest. A promising candidate for this search is Jupiter's moon Europa, as a deep-water ocean is assumed to lie under several kilometers of ice which could support extraterrestrial life. Reaching and exploring this ocean is investigated by researchers at the Robotics Innovation Center of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). In order to simulate analogous missions on Earth, they have developed an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that can navigate safely through the water using a variety of sensors, along with an IceShuttle that the AUV uses as transportation through the ice and further as a base station. For this scenario, the DFKI researchers have developed the AUV Leng and the Teredo IceShuttle. Leng was designed as a long-range exploration vehicle. Its shape is specially adapted to meeting the mission requirements: the smallest possible diameter to fit in the IceShuttle, and a hydrodynamic profile to allow low-energy travel. The IceShuttle acts as a melting probe which transports the AUV through the ice with the aid of a thermal drilling mechanism. In order to minimize the energy required during drilling, a bore hole with the smallest possible cross-section is desired. Consequently the IceShuttle must be as narrow as possible. A particular focus of the project was the navigation capability of the underwater vehicle. To precisely locate itself, Leng is equipped with a variety of navigation sensors. Utilizing sound signals from the base station, the vehicle can determine its position similar to GPS. Based on the distance and angle of the signal, the system can calculate its position and can come back to the base station, where it can transmit the information collected via an interface to the IceShuttle and recharge its batteries. All of this must happen without control from Earth. The delay in communications with Earth is 33 to 53 minutes – too long to react spontaneously to new situations.

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