Oh wow! NASA is now planning a flight to Europa and the European Space Agency to Ganymede, both on the same rocket. The trouble for me is that it won’t go until 2020 and then it’s a six year flight + two and half years around Jupiter before they orbit these two moons so that’s like 2029 before we get results and I’ll be 85 or dead. No matter.
Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system and even bigger than the planet Mercury. It may have sub-surface water and therefore life – so that’s exciting already.
But Europa, oh I do wish I can see this visit. We are pretty confident of an ocean below that icy crust and maybe even life. Arthur C. Clarke, that most prescient of science fiction writers, speculated on this in his 2010 Space Odyssey book, the sequel to 2001.
Let’s not hope he was completely right about this for, in the book, Europa was protected by the obelisk and when the Earthlings left Jupiter’s orbit, they received the repeated message:
All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landings there.
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