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OverviewJupiter's ice moon Europa is widely regarded as the most likely place to find extraterrestrial life. This book tells the engaging story of Europa, the oceanic moon. It features a large number of stunning images of the ocean moon's surface, clearly displaying the spectacular crack patterns, extensive rifts and ridges, and refrozen pools of exposed water filled with rafts of displaced ice. Coverage also features firsthand accounts of Galileo's mission to Jupiter and its moons. The book tells the rough and tumble inside story of a very human enterprise in science that lead to the discovery of a fantastic new world that might well harbor life. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Richard GreenbergPublisher: Springer-Verlag New York Inc. Imprint: Springer-Verlag New York Inc. Edition: 2008 ed. Dimensions: Width: 15.50cm , Height: 1.60cm , Length: 23.50cm Weight: 0.456kg ISBN: 9781489992994ISBN 10: 1489992995 Pages: 277 Publication Date: 12 September 2014 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Manufactured on demand  We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier. Table of ContentsWater World.- Touring the Surface.- Doing Science.- Planetary Stretch.- A Closer Look at Tidal Effects.- Global Crack Patterns.- Building Ridges.- Mind the Gap.- Strike-Slip.- Convergence.- Return to Astypalaea.- Cycloids.- Chaos.- Thick vs. Thin.- The Scars of Impact.- The Bandwagon.- The Biosphere.- Explorations to Come.ReviewsFrom the reviews: In Unmasking Europa, planetary scientist Richard Greenberg details in depth our geological understanding of the tidally tormented icy surface of Europa. Without pulling any punches, he also describes the equally tormented scientific debate that has led to the current cannon... Greenberg succeeds in conveying a story, not of heroes and villains, but about the rise and fall of ideas and how some become accepted for reasons that perhaps go beyond empirical support... In his latest work, he delivers an accessible and well-laid-out popular-science treatment in which the political narrative is more pertinent... Unmasking Europa provides a comprehensive and engaging account of Europa's past and present, and sets the stage for the many questions that will be answered by future missions as we continue our search for life beyond Earth. (Kevin P. Hand, Nature, 22 January 2009) What lies beneath Europa's icy crust? Richard Greenberg has been pondering this question for 30-odd years. His new book, Unmasking Europa, describes his view that Europa's hidden ocean and the life forms it may support are not that far below the surface. A professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, Greenberg was one of the first to formulate how tidal forces could shape the geology on Jovian moons. He got the opportunity to test his ideas as a member of the imaging team on NASA's Galileo spacecraft, which orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003. During several flybys, Galileo took hundreds of snapshots of the moon Europa, showing a surface covered with dark spots and crisscrossing lines. In his new book, Greenberg walks readers through the Europa photo gallery like acurator in an art museum. He interprets the meaning of these wonderful images and recounts how he and his colleagues came to see Europa's strange features as evidence that the outer crust is a thin layer of ice riding over a deep ocean. This is not the mainstream opinion, however. Most scientists who study Europa believe the ice is much thicker: tens of kilometers as opposed to only a few kilometers. In the course of defending his minority position, Greenberg blames the hierarchical structure of big science projects for creating a politically-motivated thick ice cabal that refused to go back on its initial interpretations even when later data seemed to contradict them... With all the evidence in the book for thin ice, why do most planetary scientists continue to support a thick crust interpretation?... Greenberg says that Galileo's team leaders decided prematurely that Europa had thick ice, and afterwards it became politically advantageous to toe that line. A cautious resistance to paradigm shifts is reasonable when a model has been serving well. But the isolated-ocean model for Europa had become the canonical paradigm for all the wrong reasons... (Michael Schirber, NASA Astrobiology Magazine, December 15, 2008) .,. The book offers detailed views of the moon's grooved rafts of ice and scalloped faults. The Tortured landscape arises from Jupiter's tidal forces, which relentlessly strain the icea weird physics that Greenberg vividly describes. His team is convinced that water or slush gurgles close to the surface, percolating through faults in ice less than 10 kilometers thick. In contrast, the leaders of Galileoa (TM)s imaging teams favor a thicker shell that isolates the ocean.This dispute forms the heart of the book. Ita (TM)s a fascinating issue that affects plans for future missions to probe for Europan lifea ] Greenberg thinks the thick-ice model is full of holes. In his view, it gained a fervent following not on merit, but because of the political power invested in the team leaders by NASA. This compelling tale deserves an airing. Greenberg makes important points about NASAa (TM)s zest for showy news and quick interpretations, and he criticizes the agency for letting archived data languisha ] (Robert Irion, Sky & Telescope, March 2009) Author InformationTab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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