Customer Reviews

Europa - The Ocean Moon: Search For An Alien Biosphere (Springer Praxis Books / Geophysical Sciences)

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As one after the other of the planets seems so bereft of life, Europa holds a unique position. It has a frozen over ocean. Plus, in its orbit, there is the prospect of residual volcanism and tidal and magnetic effects providing a raw energy driver for life to have emerged and be sustained.

So the text gives the results of the Galileo probe. You get an appreciation for the difficulties surmounted. Every so often, NASA really does an amazing job. Fascinating observaitions, but these beg for more insight. Necessitates another probe, this time with even better technology for remote sensing. Given that Galileo was launched in the late 80s, think how much better computing resources we could now put into its successor!

The book certainly has more than just findings from Galileo. It also discusses our changing and improving understanding of how to model vastly different biospheres. But the text is clearly dominated by the real Galileo results. Not just speculation.

Portions of the book will be beyond the lay reader. But there's enough that is well written and accessible to everyone.

I admit it--I'm a planetary science junkie and this is (to my knowledge) the only book available solely devoted to Europa. And it's an interesting world indeed, with a probable 60 mile deep ocean under a planet wide, largely uncratered, ice sheet. The bulk of the book explores the likelihood of the existance of this ocean and the implications it could have to a possible biosphere. Maybe life in the seas of Europa? That's a question that will have to wait for future missions. One note of caution, some chapters contain material may be beyond the comfort level of the casual reader. Nonetheless, there is plenty here to muse upon.