You are not logged in.
Pages: 1
The current idea is that Jupiters moon Europa has a hidden large underground ocean that's saturated with oxygen http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/3506/ … xygen-burn
IF (big if) this would be true then mining it could make terraforming Mars a whole lot easier.
But how much oxygen could be harvested? The icy water on Europa is cold only staying liquid because of the pressure and the amound of O2 that can be saturated increases when it gets colder assuming that there is around 14.6mg/L (0.014kg/L) http://water.epa.gov/type/rsl/monitoring/vms52.cfm and there is abouth 4E18m³ (1m³ contains a 1000 liters) I would guess that it would contain at least 4E21kg of oxygen. Whilst you would need around 8.4E17kg of oxygen to generate around 210 millibar of pressure.
(1m³ of oxygen weights 1.429kg/m³ meaning 1m³ of air on earth contains 0.2858kg of O2/ 1m³ of water on Europa would contain 14.6kg of O2 This explains how this little moon has enough O2 for 5000 atmospheres)
I've choosen some really pessimistic figures (the saturation lvl is for 0°C in stead of -160°c) Still is this to optimistic or more or less realistic?
Last edited by dunwich (2013-01-01 04:08:39)
People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.
Offline
How did the oxygen on Europa get there? How are you going to transfer it to Mars?
Otherwise I suppose it's pretty realistic.
http://phys.org/news174918239.html
The oxygen is formed on or near the surface by cosmic rays and migrates inwards (in short completly inorganic sources). I'm not sure how credible the source still it remains a interesting idea.
On how to mine it, the surface of Europa keeps renewing itself so (oxygen rich) ice keeps welling up naturally,you can bring the ice up, or put some hardware in the liquid layer and install some artificial gills that remove the oxygen you could for example make a propellor that locally reduces the pressure making it boil and releasing oxygen bubbles (I hear it's a commen noise problem with submarines).
Last edited by dunwich (2013-01-01 07:45:41)
People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.
Offline
Hmmm. I wonder, then, if oxygen clathrates are common on Europa where oxygen has bubbled up from the ocean. It might be that we can extract the ice and bombard the other moons and planets with it...
"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony
Offline
Do you think it would be easier to scrape them of the surface I would Imagen that going down towards the liquid layer would be the easiest way, also their probably easier ways to get to water ice like ceres it's closer by it doesn't have the gravity well and it recieves substantially more sunlight so colonist can have a higher degree of freedom of planting crops (also ceres gravity is so low you could probably building a spinning city underground and experience little problems with Ceres own natural gravity).
I imagen we would yust move the free oxygen. And if Europa could provide 5000 atmospheres worth of O2 then perhaps Saturns Encladus will do to witch I believeis nowhere near as deep into a gravity well
People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.
Offline
But in clathrates it comes pre-packaged.
"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony
Offline
Pages: 1