All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
Here’s a neat video of Io and Europa filmed as they fly over Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. It’s of course speeded up but what a gaudy view that would be. It reminds me of some of the scenes in Heinlein’s “Farmer in the Sky” when the boy is figuring out time by where the moons’ shadows are on the face of Jupiter.
When I was a kid interstellar exploration was something that people talked about as if it were only a matter of time before we figured it out. Fifty years later and I think we’re all a lot older and wiser. Even completely automated space craft reaching the nearest stars has begun to look like an improbability anytime within the next millennium. The scope of the resources needed to get something from here to even Proxima Centauri is staggering. Of course, I’m talking about a total project time that only totals into decades of time. If we’re interested in a 40,000-year round-trip, we could start working on it right now. But something like that is so laughably useless that I’d be embarrassed to even admit considering it as one of the options. To make the trip in a time frame that makes it useful the ship would have to accelerate to and decelerate from some considerable fraction of the speed of light. Let’s postulate 30% as the fraction. With that capability the trip would take something like twenty-five years round-trip. Sure, that’s a long time but our civilization should have a long enough attention span to follow up on the project and mine the results when the probe returns (if it returns). But the scope of such a project is too titanic for our current technological stage. It’s too grand.
Let’s look at more manageable projects. What’s doable?
I don’t have much enthusiasm for Elon Musk’s manned trip to Mars. Four or five years in space is a lot of radiation for astronauts to absorb. I don’t see the sense in it. I prefer the robot exploration thing we’ve been doing with the Voyager and later probes. The recent flyby of Pluto was very impressive. But I think much more ambitious unmanned exploration of the solar system is warranted.
I think the best bang for the buck is finding out if Europa has life in its ocean. I can imagine a series of visits. The first should be an orbiter that sends down a probe to take reading. Once the presence of water oceans has been confirmed a lander can be sent to try and find life.
I realize this is a large order to fill. I don’t know exactly how thick the ice crust is over the ocean. It may be many miles. If that is the case a very creative solution may be needed. Possibly a nuclear powered “drill” might be an option. Of course, if all else fails we could set off a nuke. Then again if there really are “Europans” we might start an interplanetary war. So maybe some thought will have to be expended thinking about the best way to search for life there. But I see a series of missions to attempt to answer this question as one of the most meaningful and exciting challenges that currently exist for mankind.
Of course, I’ve been talking of the cuff. Doing a quick AI search I see that the exact thickness of the ice is estimated to be between 5 and 20 miles thick. NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, launching in October 2024 and arriving at Jupiter around 2030, will use radar to penetrate the ice and measure its depth more precisely. So, chances are I’ll be old and broken down before much of anything is known about this ocean.
But I still find the prospect exciting. Imagine if some kind of multicellular life exists in that ocean. I hesitate to even imagine intelligent life there but it’s not impossible. We might find that wherever there’s liquid water and organic molecules life tends to develop from spores that float around in outer space. Now wouldn’t that be something?
Could the multi-milennial “War Between East and West” be based on a girl? Here’s what Herodotus learned. And if you don’t believe it, well what can I say. You must hate history.
The Persian learned men say that the Phoenicians were the cause of the dispute. These (they say) came to our seas from the sea which is called Red,1 and having settled in the country which they still occupy, at once began to make long voyages. Among other places to which they carried Egyptian and Assyrian merchandise, they came to Argos, [2] which was at that time preeminent in every way among the people of what is now called Hellas. The Phoenicians came to Argos, and set out their cargo. [3] On the fifth or sixth day after their arrival, when their wares were almost all sold, many women came to the shore and among them especially the daughter of the king, whose name was Io (according to Persians and Greeks alike), the daughter of Inachus. [4] As these stood about the stern of the ship bargaining for the wares they liked, the Phoenicians incited one another to set upon them. Most of the women escaped: Io and others were seized and thrown into the ship, which then sailed away for Egypt. 2.
In this way, the Persians say (and not as the Greeks), was how Io came to Egypt, and this, according to them, was the first wrong that was done. Next, according to their story, some Greeks (they cannot say who) landed at Tyre in Phoenicia and carried off the king’s daughter Europa. These Greeks must, I suppose, have been Cretans. So far, then, the account between them was balanced. But after this (they say), it was the Greeks who were guilty of the second wrong. [2] They sailed in a long ship to Aea, a city of the Colchians, and to the river Phasis:2 and when they had done the business for which they came, they carried off the king’s daughter Medea. [3] When the Colchian king sent a herald to demand reparation for the robbery and restitution of his daughter, the Greeks replied that, as they had been refused reparation for the abduction of the Argive Io, they would not make any to the Colchians. 3.
Then (they say), in the second generation after this, Alexandrus, son of Priam, who had heard this tale, decided to get himself a wife from Hellas by capture; for he was confident that he would not suffer punishment. [2] So he carried off Helen. The Greeks first resolved to send messengers demanding that Helen be restored and atonement made for the seizure; but when this proposal was made, the Trojans pleaded the seizure of Medea, and reminded the Greeks that they asked reparation from others, yet made none themselves, nor gave up the booty when asked. 4.
So far it was a matter of mere seizure on both sides. But after this (the Persians say), the Greeks were very much to blame; for they invaded Asia before the Persians attacked Europe. [2] “We think,” they say, “that it is unjust to carry women off. But to be anxious to avenge rape is foolish: wise men take no notice of such things. For plainly the women would never have been carried away, had they not wanted it themselves. [3] We of Asia did not deign to notice the seizure of our women; but the Greeks, for the sake of a Lacedaemonian woman, recruited a great armada, came to Asia, and destroyed the power of Priam. [4] Ever since then we have regarded Greeks as our enemies.” For the Persians claim Asia for their own, and the foreign peoples that inhabit it; Europe and the Greek people they consider to be separate from them. 5.
Such is the Persian account; in their opinion, it was the taking of Troy which began their hatred of the Greeks. [2] But the Phoenicians do not tell the same story about Io as the Persians. They say that they did not carry her off to Egypt by force. She had intercourse in Argos with the captain of the ship. Then, finding herself pregnant, she was ashamed to have her parents know it, and so, lest they discover her condition, she sailed away with the Phoenicians of her own accord. [3]
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