An Ice Ball up close?

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

So, kind of an odd question,

If you were to say, land on the surface of Europa, or some moon like it (which I would imagine are rather common in the universe), what exactly is the surface like?

The surfaces of most planets aren't too hard to understand for most people, since dirt and rocks are common pretty much anywhere you go on Earth. The moon is somewhat understandable, since impact craters, valleys, and highlands are quite recognizable to a Earthling, as is "lunar soil", although lunar soil diverges quite a bit from what we think of in most respects (dunno about you, but I dont plan on making any lunar sand castles any time soon)

But when it comes to the surface of Europa, what exactly should it look like up close? Is the surface all ice cover, or does rock poke through at points?

Perhaps more interestingly, what exactly does said Ice look like at small scales? Does some of it sublimate/deform while exposed to the sun, and what exactly does it look like in its frozen state? (ie, what sort of effects does freezing in a vaccuum have on the shape or other qualities of ice?)

 

[MaverickSawyer]

... :blink:

Well, you can rock me to sleep tonight! :lol:

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

... :blink:

Well, you can rock me to sleep tonight! :lol:

... ?

Ummm, say again Houston?

 

[Unstung]

This artist's concept shows a simulated view from the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. Europa's potentially rough, icy surface, tinged with reddish areas that scientists hope to learn more about, can be seen in the foreground. The giant planet Jupiter looms over the horizon.

This work was conducted with Europa study funds from NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.

Source


Finding a safe landing spot is important. Similar features to these may also be an issue:

...[A]ttempts to land may face a major hazard: jagged "blades" of ice up to 10m long.

A major US conference has heard the moon may have ideal conditions for icy spikes called "penitentes" to form.

Source

 

[MaverickSawyer]

... ?

Ummm, say again Houston?

Just one of those moments where you ponder something unknowable for the moment...
The line came from Bloom County, an OLD comic strip that ended before I was born...
I'm trying to find an image of the particular trip that line came from, but even Google is having issues locating it! :lol:

EDIT: FINALLY!!!!!

 

[jedidia]

Source

This looks like ridge noise function with way too high a frequency. If I'd saw it in terrain generator, I'd call it a bug. If the real thing looks like this, we have a classic case of reality is unrealistic... again!

 

[Spacethingy]

Who knew!

 

[statickid]

Well titan is sort of an icy moon and what we consider as ice there is similar on the terrain as rocks, like ice pebbles, ice boulders, ice dust etc. HOWEVER titan also has an atmosphere and mechanisms similar to our own aqua-geologic systems, so the ice ends up taking that kind of role. However when we have winter weather we see some very odd crystalline/fluid interactions and formations. Like hoary frost, ice storms and snow is actually quite complicated when you look at alpine areas. Like the way snow compresses into glacial ice and flows. Even though there are no doubt vast differences from what we are familiar with, Earth is "just another" planet too, and I imagine we can find many similarities, such as a comparison of Olympus Mins to Hawaii, Grand Marinaras and Grand Canyon, Titan looks like a desert made of ice. It seems like every new surface we looks almost boringly familiar, yet strangely exotic. Like the comet nucleus kind of just looks like a smooth asteroid, and the asteroid ends up just looking like a sorted gravel pile blob instead of the steel crystal shard growths of Armageddon lore

 

[Unstung]

Speaking of ice balls (brr), this thread reminded me on a presentation I've watched recently on New Horizons. Don't forget about the new icy worlds that are about to be revealed:

If you have the time, it's really informative. (This is the version I've seen, but the speech is the same and the above video is updated.) Alan Stern is the principal investigator on the mission.

I recall that the surfaces of Pluto and Charon will be imaged at (up to) 75m/pixel, along with temperature data and spectroscopy taken across their disks. The side of Pluto that can't be seen during closest approach will be imaged beforehand in decent resolution, much better than Hubble. Pluto rotates only once every 6.39 days, so surface features can't be that detailed even with LORRI's 263 cm, 2630 mm, focal length. New Horizons will gather much more data in much higher resolution than Voyager 2 was able to collect at Triton, of course.