HOMEWORK 4, Astr 305G

Due: Thursday, April 3

Investigate plans for a mission to Jupiter's Moon "Europa". Note that you will likely find several missions, proposals, etc in different states of development. So before writing, make some notes of the particular experiments you find and see if you can determine their status (e.g. were they proposed a decade ago and no longer relevant, then skip it). I realize you will not be able to summarize but see if you can find some main ideas that are being proposed.

The are several pages in the book that address this, but I want you to go beyond the book and find some actual proposed mission(s) to get a bit more detail.

In your one-page answer address:

a. Why we think Europa has (water) ice and possibly liquid water beneath the ice. Is there observational evidence? Describe it.

b. What are the ideas on getting through the ice layer? Have scientists been able to get a good estimate of the thickness of the ice? How was that estimate done or how would it be done?

c. What would the mission hope to accomplish? What would we look for assuming we can get through the ice?

d. How would we get through the ice? What techniques are being discussed?

e. Is there actually a mission that has been approved or just plans thus far? Can you get an idea on the likelihood that this will happen (think of challenges such as technology required, cost, etc).