Planetary Protection Considerations in Europa Exploration
Abstract
Jupiter's moon Europa appears almost certain to have the three requirements for life as we know it on Earth: abundant liquid water in the form of a likely ocean whose volume is twice that of Earth's oceans; a souce of biogenic elements (carbon, nitrogen, etc.) either present at formation or subsequently accreted by cometary impact, and sources of free energy that could provide the chemical disequilibrium off of which microorganisms could survive. Regardless of whether Europa's ice layer covering its ocean is thin (several kilometers thick) or thick (tens of kilometers thick), there appear to be geophysical mechanisms for surface material to communicate with the oceans on timescales shorter than a million years, and perhaps much less. At the same time, the radiation environment at Europa, due to charged particles accelerated in Jupiter's magnetosphere, is impressive. This talk will review what we know about Europa that is relevant to planetary protection issues, and then discuss the latter in light of this knowledge, and current (sometimes contradictory) models.
- Publication:
-
34th COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- 2002
- Bibcode:
- 2002cosp...34E3030C