Overview

A Close Look at Europa . . .

And How Big Science Gets Done . . .

The second-outward of Jupiter's four major moons, Europa is covered with ice, as confirmed in views from modern telescopes and the thousands of images returned by NASA's Voyager and Galileo missions. But these higher-resolution views also showed that the ice is anything but smooth. In fact, Europa's surface is covered with vast criss-crossing systems of mountain-sized ridges, jumbled regions of seemingly chaotic terrain, and patches that suggest upwellings of new surface materials from below. How scientists think about the underlying forces that shaped this incredibly complex, bizarre, and beautiful surface is the subject of this book.

In Unmasking Europa, Richard Greenberg tells the story of how he and his team of researchers came to believe that the surface of Europa is in fact a crust so thin that it can barely hide an ocean of liquid water below. He shows how the ocean is warmed by the friction of tidal movements in this small moon as it orbits around immense Jupiter. The implications of this interpretation- which includes the idea that there are active intermittent openings from the liquid ocean to the frozen surface- are immense. The warmth, the chemistry, and the connections from ocean to surface provide the conditions necessary for the existence of life, even at this relatively remote locale in our solar system, far beyond what's normally thought of as its 'habitable zone.'

Unmasking Europa describes in clear but technically sophisticated terms- and with extensive illustrations (including more than 100 NASA images)- the remarkable history of research on Europa over the last four decades. The book also provides unique insights into how big science gets done today, and it is not always a pretty picture. From his perspective as professor of Planetary Science at the University of Arizona, and a quarter century-long membership on the Imaging Team for NASA's Galileo mission, Greenberg describes how personal agendas (including his own) and political maneuvering (in which he received an education by fire) determined a lot about the funding, staffing, and even the direction of the research about Europa.

While he is satisfied that his team's work is now, finally, receiving fair consideration and even respect, Greenberg comes away from his experience feeling that something is fundamentally wrong with the scientific enterprise as a whole because it routinely punishes innovation, risk-taking thought, and willingness to simply let the evidence lead where it may. In today's scientific environment with its careerist pressures and peer-reviewed propriety, Greenberg believes, astute scientists (and sadly many of our youngest and brightest) quickly realize that it is more rewarding in very practical ways to stay within the mainstream- a tendency that by its very nature is at odds with the ideals of scientific research and thought.

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Reviews

From the reviews: <p> 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) <p> 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) <p>.,. 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)

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