New Jupiter-Europa Mission: Call it 'Clarke'?

February 19, 2009

No sooner does Discovery Space put up a Wide Angle pondering a mission to Jupiter's ice-encrusted Europa, then the U.S. and European space agencies say,
"Baby, you're as cold as ice -- and covered in ice -- but we're going to fly out 780 million miles to meet you."

I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea.

Check out the European Space Agency's (ESA) release here, and NASA's release here (Emily Lackdawalla of the Planetary Society Blog seems to have put the first post up about this, so a hat tip to her).

Now, Europa did have some stiff (or should I say muddy?) competition: Saturn's chilly moon Titan. Scientists put up a fight for robotic visitation rights, and they still won -- Titan is on the roadmap for a future mission.

I think the reason Titan came in at #2 is because we already dropped a probe onto its soupy, organic surface -- the Huygens probe, for all of you non-space nerds -- which is why I think it's high-time we give Europa a peek.

Looking for background? Roll through this package we put together for you last week:

Cosmic Collisions

January 24, 2009

Cosmic collisions. If those two words don't send your neurons into a tizzy, I question whether you are human.

You should imagine asteroids smacking into the Earth, fire and destruction, and all of that other Armageddon goodness we humans are oh-so-fascinated with. Which is why the Discovery Channel decided to bring you a great three-part special called, well, "Cosmic Collisions."

Click here for the schedule which you can ask to send you an e-mail reminder. Cool right? Very useful for forgetful types (e.g. myself).

As of this posting, the first episode called "Galaxies" is set to air Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 10:00 p.m. ET.

And for the behind-the-scenes scoop on what the show covers, visit the Wide Angle I put together.

You can test your know-how by taking this quiz, browse real and imagined outer space smashups in a slide show, find out what comets have to do with life on Earth, discover the difference between asteroids and meteorites, and investigate what will happen to life on Earth after Andromeda whacks our host galaxy in a few billion years.

By the way: the show's timing couldn't be better! Ever heard of how a Mars-sized object gave Earth the kiss of death about 4.5 billion years ago, resulting in the created of the moon?

Well, get a load of this new story -- we now know the moon cooled from an "ocean of magma" into the solid body we look up at today about 100 million years after obliterating early Earth. That's more than twice as good as the estimate we had before, thanks to a little zircon crystal in a moon rock (which you can bet is more valuable than those impostor diamond rings).

Anyhow, feel free comment about the show below. And for reading all the way to the end of this post enjoy this special treat. It's a little something we cooked up but haven't officially put up on Discovery Space!

Photo: Don Davis, NASA