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I’m with Cindy on this. There is something about Europa. The idea of life existing so far away from the sun in an underwater world insulated from the cold and the radiation of Jupter. There is something beautiful about that, something that really demonstrates the resilience of life. It is a wonder of the solar system And I for one would like to see the day I could go scuba diving under her warm blanket of ice. I don’t know maybe I expect to see fish. If it is just microbes I’ll have to rethink my position. Of course if europa is destroyed it means there will be know underwater cities in the solar system with the exception of possibly earh.
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Europa, Europa, ice filled sea
Are little fishies swimming in thee?
Do the buggie little microbes crawl
Along your miles of icy walls?
Or perhaps some larger greater things
Deep within your endless ocean sings,
Like our whales and dolphins here on Earth?
Perhaps then your blubber has some worth.
I know not, care not, for what you may be
Or whatever may swim in your sea,
No fishie, buggie, or silly ice
Will stop mankind from their playing dice-
Europa, Europa, ice filled sea
One day soon we will come remake thee.
Oh don't take it so seriously.
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There is something about Europa. The idea of life existing so far away from the sun in an underwater world insulated from the cold and the radiation of Jupter. There is something beautiful about that, something that really demonstrates the resilience of life. It is a wonder of the solar system And I for one would like to see the day I could go scuba diving under her warm blanket of ice.
*Yep. Nicely expressed.
--Cindy
::EDIT:: SpaceNut, thanks for posting those articles. Nice reminder and perhaps others here haven't yet read them. Some of them were posted previously http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1509]in the original Europa thread, if I recall correctly.
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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Clarke, what a nice little poem! Thanks.
I think Europa is safe where mining it for Mars is concerned. There is water easier to reach than Europa's, deep inside Jupiter's gravity well.
I think Europa's safe where terraforming is concerned, also. It's too deep in Jupiter's radiation belts to be habitable. Heating it up would melt the ice crust and convert it into a huge open ocean, and why would we do that?
But I would worry whether we will poke the place in the wrong way and damage its ecology, if it has one.
-- RobS
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I think Europa's safe where terraforming is concerned, also. It's too deep in Jupiter's radiation belts to be habitable.
*Yes, I pointed out the issue of Jupiter's radiation belts in my first response in this thread.
The thread was begun regarding the mining (robotic) of Europa for Mars' benefit, not terraforming Europa itself.
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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Here is also a thought for the exploration after sending robotic missions.
How about sending a nuclear submarine and a dome shaped floating habitat once man could go.
On a side note I started a thread on the Earths ocean why have we not colonized them.
I think the two water worlds have much in common in the way that we must go about exploration of each.
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Giving this a bump as well to find for later repairs
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Juno spacecraft to go screaming by Jupiter’s moon Europa in close approach
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