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50-Foot-Tall Ice Spikes Cover Europa, New Study Suggests
Sci-News.com ^ | Oct 9, 2018 | News Staff / Source

Posted on 10/09/2018 9:45:30 AM PDT by ETL

On Earth, the sublimation of massive ice deposits at equatorial latitudes under cold and dry conditions in the absence of any liquid melt leads to the formation of spiked and bladed textures eroded into the surface of the ice.

Known as penitentes, these sublimation-sculpted blades grow to between 3 to 16 feet (1-5 m) tall, but they are restricted to high-altitude tropical and subtropical conditions, such as in the Andes.

Europa, however, has the perfect conditions necessary for penitentes to form more uniformly — its surface is dominated by ice.

It has the thermal conditions needed for ice to sublime without melting; and there is very little variation in the angle in which the Sun shines on the surface.

In the new study, Cardiff University researcher Daniel Hobley and colleagues used observational data to calculate the sublimation rates at various points on Europa’s surface, and then used these to estimate the size and distribution of penitentes.

They concluded that the penitentes could potentially grow to around 50 feet tall with a spacing of around 25 feet (7.5 m) between each one.

It was also inferred that the penitentes would be more common around Europa’s equator.

“The unique conditions of Europa present both exciting exploratory possibilities and potentially treacherous danger,” Dr. Hobley said.

“The presence of sharp, blade-like structures towering to almost 50 feet high would make any potential landing mission to Europa extremely precarious.”

“We hope that studies like ours will help the engineers to develop innovative ways of delivering landers safely on Europa’s surface so that we can find out even more about this fascinating place, and potentially look for signs of extraterrestrial life.”

(Excerpt) Read more at sci-news.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Chit/Chat; Science
KEYWORDS: astronomy; europa; ice; jupiter; science; spike; spikes
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To: Campion

Technology so advanced it appears to be magic.


21 posted on 10/09/2018 3:38:26 PM PDT by Ozark Tom
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To: Ciaphas Cain

I think it holds up pretty damned well for 30+-year-old sci-fi. But there will still be night; Jupiter will be on the same side as the sun for years at a time. And the damage to the ecosystem (most animals thrive at night) will be incalculable.


22 posted on 10/10/2018 1:19:47 AM PDT by dangus ("The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops" -- St. Athanasius)
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To: dangus

Yeah but we’re not supposed to think about that. Just as we’re not supposed to think about all of those Ewoks that should have perished as billions upon billions of tons of burning wreckage from the Death Star came plummeting toward Endor :-P


23 posted on 10/10/2018 1:24:17 AM PDT by Ciaphas Cain ("Progressivism" is as every kind of evil: it can never create, only corrupt and destroy.)
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To: Ciaphas Cain

Ewok apocalypse wouldn’t’ve happened. It presumes that the Death Star is relatively solid, but it probably was more hollow than a great, big soap bubble. (Seriously: an armada of spacecraft fly through open space past structures which themselves are probably more hollow than any modern skyscraper, and probably more hollow than any hangar.) Also, given that the Death Star would have to be at an geostationary (endorstationary?) orbit to be protected at all times by the shield generator, it would have been so far away that the vast, vast majority of its mass would have been blasted AWAY from endor or PAST endor, and probably would have eventually burned up in the atmosphere of the gas giant around which endor orbited.

Wait, you ask: would an endorstationary orbit be that far? Orbitting a massive gas giant, Endor would likely have been tidally locked to its host planet. Our moon is tidally locked; Mercury is tidally locked to the Sun. That means that its day is about as long (rotating period) as its month (revolving period). That would explain how so much got done on Endor in one night: that night could have lasted days or even weeks.

In fact, the BEST guess is that Death Star didn’t even revolve around Endor at all; it would have been SO far from Endor, the gravity of the gas giant may have made a stable endorstationary orbit impossible. Instead, it may have been following Endor at a fixed distance in the same orbit as Endor. This is possible at 60 or 180 degrees away. At THIS distance, the Death Star may have blown up while having very minimal effect on Endor at all.


24 posted on 10/10/2018 1:37:43 AM PDT by dangus ("The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops" -- St. Athanasius)
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To: dangus

You are way, WAY above my pay grade, my friend :-)


25 posted on 10/10/2018 1:54:23 AM PDT by Ciaphas Cain ("Progressivism" is as every kind of evil: it can never create, only corrupt and destroy.)
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To: Ciaphas Cain

I just like spreading the debunking of the ewok apocalypse hypothesis.


26 posted on 10/10/2018 2:13:11 AM PDT by dangus ("The floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops" -- St. Athanasius)
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