Carnival of Space #164 @ Next Big Future

The latest edition of the Carnival of Space, the 164th, is now online over at Next Big Future.  This week, space blogs focused on issues such as an updated Lunar Sample Atlas, terrestrial extremophiles, the Mars rover Curiosity, and the distribution of exoplanets discovered by the Kepler telescope.

Looking elsewhere on the web,  The New York Times Art&Design reporter Edward Rothstein reviewed an exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington titled, "Beyond: Visions of Our Solar System".  The art exhibit includes 148 images from various space missions, including an image of Io.  New Horizons imaged the Jupiter system from a distance of 2.4 billion kilometers on June 24, 2010.  Even from that great distance, Europa and Ganymede were visible and Jupiter was 12 pixels wide in LORRI camera images.

Link: Carnival of Space 164 [nextbigfuture.com/]

Naked Science: Journey to Jupiter Follow-up

So yesterday, I reminded all of you to check out the National Geographic Channel show Naked Science, which had a new episode last night titled, "Journey to Jupiter". The show covered results from the Galileo mission at Jupiter and how unanswered questions from that mission have led to a host of new missions planned for the giant planet.

Overall, I thought the show was quite decent, if a bit uneven in its coverage. I thought the first half of the show covering the planet itself was excellent. The show presented several mysteries regarding Jupiter, its origins, and how it fits in with the formation and evolution of the solar system. These include the Galileo probe results which have led to the theory that Jupiter has migrated inward from the outer solar system, Shoemaker-Levy 9 observations that provided evidence for the amount of water in Jupiter's atmosphere (which the Galileo probe failed to obtain because it flew through an abnormal dry hotspot), and cloud tracking results which show how large storms evolve and persist on Jupiter. The episode also showed how lingering questions from the areas of interest have led to the development of Juno, a mission scheduled for launch in 2011. Again, the show's producers did a great job with Jupiter, in my opinion. However, since I am less familiar with gas planet research in general, I may not be in the best position to judge that parts effectiveness.

The second half of the episode was dedicated to Jupiter's four largest moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. During this part, I felt the show faultered a bit. No, I am not criticising it for only dedicating 4 or 5 minutes, at best, to Io, and 15 minutes to Europa. I accept the fact that Europa may generate more interest from shows such as this, and I am not going to criticise them for the editorial choice on how much to time to give each moon. However, I felt that the style of coverage, presenting a few new results from Galileo and looking at remaining mysteries, didn't carry over as well from the Jupiter half of the show to the satellite part, particularly the Io section. What do we learn instead from the Io section: Io has active volcanism (a surprise!) and that it is powered by tidal flexing of the moon's interior. Okay, but what about the results from Galileo? Surely, there were new results from Galileo or other aspects of Io that could be touched on briefly. Sulfur vs. silcates? High-temperature volcanism? Maybe the radiation effects on Galileo? Nothing. Io has active volcanism and it is powered by tidal flexing. Ganymede and Callisto faired a bit better, with a brief discussion of the results regarding their interiors and Ganymede's magnetic field.

The last 15 minutes of the show were dedicated to Europa. Fine, okay, I think I can live if Europa gets her moment in the Sun. I think the biggest issue with the section may not be the producers' fault, the show was clearly completed well before the flagship downselection, but the show did spend some time discussing what a Europa orbiter would accomplish. I am a bit envious that Bob P. got to play around with huge blocks of ice (while two guys in the background tried to pretend there wasn't a film crew in their lab, from experience, 10 bucks they are pretending to work so they get to be in the shot). In my turn at being interviewed for on of these types of programs, all I got to do was point at a map or point at a computer screen (or be one of those people in the background pretending to work). Anyways, the Europa section does do a decent job in presenting the geological finding of Galileo, then it delves into astrobiology. Say it with me children, "Water DOES NOT EQUAL life." Now, keep saying that until you get it. I swear, it is like nails to a chalkboard whenever someone implies that. True, they did touch on the fact that Europa might have accessible raw materials that would be needed for native life. So I give them kudos for that (they even mentioned CO2, good on them). Now with that being said, the end of the show does present us with a potential future mission to Europa, a sub-surface submarine, by looking at a prototype being used on Earth. It presents the issues with such a mission, such as the need for autonomy and the heat source required for the sub to tunnel its way down through Europa's ice shell. Still, it would have been better, I think, for the show to stick with missions that are in the reasonable near-future.

This new episode of Naked Science covering Jupiter and its moons clearly focused on the planet itself and Europa. Jovian science was well-presented from this outsiders perspective, but more care could have been done to present some of the on-going mysteries about the satellites, particularly Io, where I felt too much time was spent explaining just the basics of tidal heating.

Review: Volcanism on Io

On Monday, I received my copy of the book Volcanism on Io: A Comparison with Earth by JPL researcher Ashley Davies. This book, by Cambridge University Press, was published late last year. I had considered picking up a copy since it was published, but the cost of the book ($133 on Amazon.com) was a significant barrier. Thankfully due to some lowered expenses this month, I was able to pull the trigger on buying this book.

Volcanism on Io is a review of our current knowledge, post-Galileo, of Io's volcanic activity. This is a much more focused publication compared to the other major post-Galileo Io book, Io After Galileo, edited by Rosaly Lopes and John Spencer with chapters contributed by nearly 30 authors, including yours truly. The book focuses on modeling of volcanic activity, particularly how thermal emission observed from remote instruments can be related to the style of volcanic activity. Davies also spends several chapters on reviewing our current ideas for the eruption styles at several distinct volcanoes, including Loki, Pele, Tvashtar, Prometheus, Amirani, and Pillan.

The meat of the book comes from Davies's explanation of his lava cooling model, presenting step-by-step the various aspects of it including the equations he uses. I wish more diagrams were used to show how some of the variables he uses inter-relate, making some parts of his explanation a bit hard to follow. Also, the chapter in question, Models of Effusive Eruption Processes, is largely a rewrite of the author's 2005 paper on the subject. This fact highlights my most important criticism of this book. Davies does a great job in covering the subjects that are in his wheelhouse: NIMS observations of Io's volcanic activity, internal structure, and modeling of terrestrial and ionian volcanism. Discussion of subjects that are less so, like volcanic plumes and geomorphology, seem to rushed. For example, I would have loved to have seen a chapter covering modeling of volcanic plumes in as much detail as the one on effusive eruption modeling.

Volcanism on Io, with the exception of parts of Chapter 7 where more illustrations could have been very helpful in understanding the equations he was presenting, the book is well illustrated, presenting models based on our current understanding of Ionian volcanism. This is particularly useful in his cutaway views showing the envisioned structure of Io's lithosphere in Chapter 18 and of paterae formation in Chapter 15.

Volcanism on Io provides a focused examination of several of Io's volcanoes. Applying the models Davies presented in the preceding chapters, the author provides in this book a detailed analysis of the eruption styles of specific volcanic centers. I almost wished he expanded his analysis to more volcanoes, like Isum (where several eruptions centered on Io's largest fissure were observed by Galileo), Hi'iaka (a patera with a potentially unique formation process), Kanehekili, and Masubi. It should be noted that the manuscript was likely written sometime in late 2006, before the New Horizons flyby as no results from that encounter are presented.

Ashley Davies's Volcanism on Io is an in-depth look at an important aspect of Ionian science, its volcanic activity. The book provides a review of our current state of knowledge in the subject and focuses on Davies's own models for how the observed thermal emission relate to several important eruption parameters, such as volumetric flow rate, and further, how those relate to eruption style. Davies does an excellent job in explaining how these different eruption styles work. I wish Davies had spent more time on subjects that are not in his wheel house, such as the geomorphology of volcanic terrains and volcanic plumes. Still, I definitely recommend this book for people wanting to better understand the nitty-gritty of perhaps the most important aspect of Io science, the active volcanism on display.

Link: Volcanism on Io: A Comparison with Earth [www.cambridge.org]