Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Ice Moon Explorer
    The Ice Moon Explorer
    The Ice Moon Explorer
    Ebook97 pages1 hour

    The Ice Moon Explorer

    By Navin Weeraratne

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    "I stepped out of the hatch, on to a life-bearing world.

    Below, in the Damascus valley, a line of geysers was firing. They shot water up at twice the speed of sound. Flash freezing, it built diamond columns a hundred kilometers into space. Lots of it would snow, someday, on other moons.

    It was bright. Saturn was out, and the lander floodlit the snow. Enceladus's fine grain snows made it the most reflective body in the solar system. Down in the "Tiger Stripe" valley though, the ice was a bit darker, and chunkier. Impurities form the ocean below.

    Impurities like Life."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNavin Weeraratne
    Release dateOct 16, 2015
    ISBN9781311764041
    The Ice Moon Explorer
    Author

    Navin Weeraratne

    I'm a miniature painter, living in Sri Lanka. When I'm not writing science fiction, I'm playing table top RPGs, brushing up on my science reading, and stalking Neil Degrasse Tyson.

    Related to The Ice Moon Explorer

    Related ebooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Solar Flair

      Jul 16, 2019

      Solar Flair
      5 min read

    • Article

      Extraterrestrial

      Dec 1, 2019

      Extraterrestrial
      7 min read

    • Article

      Solar Flair

      Jun 27, 2019

      Solar Flair
      5 min read

    • Article

      Is The Search For Dark Matter An Act Of Faith?

      Oct 10, 2019

      The young physicist sits at his computer, watching for signals from Cygnus. His name is Christopher Toth, and his white lab coat is too big for him. Christopher speaks with calm clarity. His manner is modest, gracefully gentle, and I wonder if this c

      8 min read

    • Article

      Muse News

      Apr 1, 2024

      Muse News
      3 min read

    • Article

      Microscopic Water Bears Could Be The First Interstellar Space Travellers

      Feb 16, 2022

      NASA space technology graduate researcher In 2019, a spacecraft containing strange, microscopic organisms crash-landed on the Moon. Israel’s Beresheet Lunar Lander was the first non-governmental craft to attempt a landing on the lunar surface. It car

      4 min read

    • Article

      The First Black Holes

      Nov 3, 2021

      The First Black Holes
      7 min read

    • Article

      Have Balloons and Ice Broken the Standard Model?

      Oct 11, 2018

      For something called the Standard Model, the foundational theory of particle physics is confronting a lengthy list of non-standard data. Neutrino oscillations, dark matter and energy, the imbalance between matter and anti-matter, quantum gravity—ther

      8 min read

    • Article

      Muse News

      Feb 1, 2023

      Muse News
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Most Beautiful Science of the Year

      Dec 22, 2023

      As editors our eyes are glued to the page all day, focused on one story, sometimes one tricky passage, and often, when it comes to writing headlines, one word! It’s amazing to look up at the end of the year and see what we’ve produced. We are so happ

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Saturnian And The Sirian

      Mar 17, 2021

      The Saturnian And The Sirian
      6 min read

    • Article

      Why Birds Can Fly Over Mount Everest

      Dec 30, 2020

      Happy Holidays. This week we are reprinting our top stories of 2020. This article first appeared online in our “Energy” issue in June, 2020. Dear Bella, I’m going to imitate Rudyard Kipling and tell you a just-so story. Kipling was one of the most po

      12 min read

    • Article

      Too Much Space

      Mar 17, 2021

      Too Much Space
      5 min read

    • Article

      There Is No Safe Place to Hide

      Jul 31, 2017

      There Is No Safe Place to Hide
      11 min read

    • Article

      Ice Fishing for Neutrinos

      Nov 2, 2017

      One afternoon in February 2000, after a long day’s drilling, Bruce Koci and I sat together on the sand in the volcanic crater on the 19,000-foot summit of Kilimanjaro. As we leaned against our packs and watched the sun set, he reminisced about his ca

      11 min read

    • Article

      The Octopus

      Oct 30, 2020

      The Octopus
      4 min read

    • Article

      Chris Packham Versus The World

      Jul 27, 2023

      Chris Packham Versus The World
      6 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Ice Moon Explorer

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Ice Moon Explorer - Navin Weeraratne

      The Ice Moon Explorer

      By Navin Weeraratne

      Copyright 2015 Navin Weeraratne

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to your favorite ebook retailer to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

      Contents

      The Ice Moon Explorer

      References

      About the Author

      Connect with Navin

      Excerpt: The Hundred Gram Mission

      The Ice Moon Explorer

      I've said over and overthat Enceladus is the most accessible habitable zone. It would win hands down over Mars or Europa. Europa is bathed with such intense radiation that it's hard to imagine biology. If organic materials are found on the surface, how do you know that it's not organic material raining down on the surface? But with Enceladus, what's inside is accessible. You don't have to scratch. You don't have to dig. You don't have to sniff. You don't have to do any of those complex things. All you really have to do is land on the surface, look up and stick your tongue out.

      - Carolyn Porco, Cassini Imaging Science Team [1]

      2065, Saturn's E-Ring

      Pilot, where did Titan go?

      The Ice Collecting Explorer's (ICE) scoop was fully unfurled. I looked through its translucent membrane. It had been clear as clingwrap (which it was related to) in the morning. Already, it was fogging with micro particles of ice and silt.

      Titan? said the computer. Titan is right where it is, lady.

      A red square appeared on the smart glass cockpit. It caged a large dot of light.

      Yeah but it can't be there, I pointed. I looked at the time. Shouldn't it be still behind Saturn?

      Well it's not.

      Yes but how come? Titan's orbit is sixteen days.

      I don't know man. Why is the sun less bright? Are there cats? Why do only assholes wear Fedoras? You just leave the orbital mechanics to me, and you worry about the icy moon geology.

      Images from Enceladus Observer were on screen (two decades and that probe was still ticking). Enceladus was streaming ejecta into space like a hundred oil well fires.

      How many geysers are we up to?

      Eighty three in the last pass, said Pilot. Judging by plume volume, the eruptions will last a few more days.

      Isn't that a record?

      For our mission, yes. Talk about right place and the right time.

      Indeed.

      There was an ocean under Enceladus. As it freezes, it gets smaller. Its forty kilometer ice shell cracks, and fissures form. Enceladus's core heats the ocean, which drives water up those fissures. It blasts into space, some returning as snow. The rest orbits for long as ten million years. It'll snow slowly, down on Tethys, Dione, and Rhea. It's been happening for eons: Saturn's E-Ring is a giant, frozen, ocean sample.

      We can send the lander to collect the heavier matter.

      Let's wait till the snowing is finished. I don't want to dig it out again. You'd think digging out my car after a blizzard wouldn't be a thing a billion kilometers from home. Shit work. It's why we still have a crewed program.

      What's in our scoop?

      Life, said Pilot. Lots of high heat silica. Bacterial fatty acids. It's traumatic down there - we even have shredded DNA.

      Far away and locked under ice, we had expected Enceladans to be unique. They should have been a different pathway of life, altogether. Instead, they were related to us. This meant a common origin. Did Earth-Mars meteorites seed Enceladus like they did each other? How did they punch through the ice? Or, had simple life already spread through the cluttered early solar system? Perhaps DNA was older than the Earth.

      Prep the bioreactor, hydrothermal vent conditions. Let's cook some ice and see what happens!

      Are you sure?

      What do you mean am I sure? Of course I'm sure!

      Maybe we should do a sort first, separate fresh ice from older, E-Ring matter.

      "This ice is right out the geyser. These are the purest samples we've ever had. Why are you even suggesting contamination? Camping for an eruption, was your idea."

      I just don't want to take any chances.

      Well, we'll have half a ton of ice once this is done. Kapoor can take his time checking it. I'd rather not wait eight weeks to see what's alive down there. We can set up the bioreactor, today. Tomorrow, we'll have plankton and wrigglers to look at.

      If there are too many wrigglers, they'll eat all the jellies and plankton. You'll just have a dead aquarium in a few days. I'm not the one who has to clean it out. The threat of shit work.

      I pulled up a status on the bioreactor. It was a chamber that could duplicate conditions in the ocean's different biomes. It needed chemicals, but I had stocked up before leaving Carolyn Porco Station.

      We have enough magnetite. If the wrigglers become a problem, we can add a bit. That will inhibit them. It should be enough till we make it back to Porco.

      Alright. I'll prep it then.

      It was, as things usually are in a small spaceship, uneventful. I followed Florida's climate refugee crisis on NPR, 79 minutes late. Vajra Kapoor checked in from Telesto, he was delighted with

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1