What if the same spacecraft studied mysterious icy bodies and the cosmos as well? The last up-close-and-personal imagery of the ice giants was taken by the Voyager 2 mission in the 1970s, and planetary scientists have many outstanding questions about these distant bodies. Then, the spacecraft would sip up that extraterrestrial liquid, sending it to internal instruments that could analyze it for signs of life.įinally, our furthest planetary neighbors, Uranus and Neptune, are long overdue for a visit.
The impact would melt some of the ice, and the probe would also carry heaters to help melting along. Known as the Ice Shell Impact Penetrator (IceShIP), this probe would hit the surface "faster than a bullet" according to Chinmayee Govinda Raj, an astrobiologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "That's something we'd like to change," Ulibarri said during his presentation.Īnother team is going directly for the ocean itself, planning to smack a spacecraft straight into the ice shell. But this method requires an atmosphere, so it hasn't been done in space. The best technique is known as electrospray ionization - which actually won a Nobel Prize in 2002 - since it manages to keep the molecules intact instead of breaking them into pieces. The trick is the first step, ionizing the molecules. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/Space Science Institute) Scientists dream of flying through Enceladus' plumes. From the arrival times, scientists can calculate mass, then identify the compound. The lighter molecules arrive at the end first, with the heavier molecules lagging behind, just like how a tennis ball will move faster if you throw it than a bowling ball. To measure what's in a sample, scientists ionize the material - give it a positive or negative charge - and send it flying down a tube.
#Next space rebels fly through window how to
Zach Ulibarri, a physicist at Cornell University, is tackling how to make the best lab equipment for measuring molecules work in space. If a satellite can fly through a plume and collect a sample, then scientists could see if the oceans contain any molecules useful for life in them. Waiting for a plume to sprout up is a bit easier, especially since the famous Cassini mission at Saturn gathered definitive proof that Enceladus has plenty of plumes. There are two ways to investigate these oceans: wait for water to spray out from cracks in the shell, or find a way in through the ice. Both these snowballs host subsurface oceans, protected by a thick ice shell. (Image credit: NASA)įurther out in the solar system, astronomers are targeting the icy worlds of Europa and Enceladus, moons of Jupiter and Saturn respectively, in search of alien life. NASA's Jupiter-exploring spacecraft Juno made a close pass at the giant planet's ice-covered moon Europa on Sept. And the team is dreaming even bigger for the future, hoping to someday make a larger version of the REBELS drill that could dig as deep as 330 feet (100 m) on the moon as part of a mission with Blue Origins' Blue Moon lander. Honeybee engineers are also working on a similar project for Mars called REDWATER, meant to harvest subsurface water. Stolov and his colleagues are also adding science instruments - such as temperature sensors and cameras - to the tip of the drill bit to make scientific observations while below the surface. The engineers are using technologies common on Earth for oil and gas drilling, and making them more compact and ready to endure the harsh environment of space. "We want to go deeper," Stolov said during his presentation. These top layers are mostly lunar soil, though, which doesn't provide much information about the moon's internal structure or water resources. Since the Apollo missions in the 1970s, humanity has been digging into the moon's surface, but only a couple meters deep. Honeybee mechanical engineer Leo Stolov presented plans for the Rapidly Excavated Borehole for Exploring Lunar Subsurface (REBELS) drill, which would dig more than 33 feet (10 meters) into the moon's surface searching for water ice deposits.
To dig down and find out what's underneath, engineers from Honeybee Robotics are designing drills to reach further into these worlds than ever before. It also seems like much of that water is likely stored below ground on both our neighboring Red Planet and our moon. The blue in the images represents areas of surface ice. Water is one of the most valuable resources on the moon and is mostly located in craters at the south pole, left, and north pole, right.
0 kommentar(er)
