From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Thu Feb 01 2001 - 11:38:32 MST
Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com> Wrote:
> Many of the Gas Giants planets have oceans within their moons. Could
> we create an undersea base in the middle of some ocean?
Reminds me of Lake Vostoc in Antarctica. This lake is several thousand feet
deep and contains more fresh liquid water than lake Ontario, yet it was only
discovered about 5 years ago. The reason for this is that it's in the coldest place
on the coldest continent on Earth, and it's under more than 2 miles of solid ice;
a geological hot spot created it. The parallels to the hypothetical oceans under the
ice moons of the giant planets is intriguing. Nobody knows if there is life in lake Vostoc,
all drilling is deliberately stopped several hundred feet before entering the lake to avoid
polluting it. There is also worry that if there are any microorganisms in the lake then they
have been cut off from the rest of the planet for about a million years, so we may have
no immunity against them. Nobody wants to start a plague. A sterile robot probe on a
one way trip may be able to explore it in about 10 years, but it will never leave the lake.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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