For Europa, that is under the icy surface. In order for the astronauts to examine under the surface, they need a drill that will go through the ice and create a hole for a probe. The drill that they use looks to be a thermal drill with the underwater probe attached (Cordero, 27:21). The drill melts the ice upon impact signifying that a thermal drill is used instead of a mechanical drill or a laser. These thermal drills can cause tremors in the ice as seen in the movie just like any other drill because the surface of the moon is being split. The drilling along with the consistent pull from Jupiter and its other moons can cause serious tremors that can affect the drilling process which is why they used a thermal drill. This drill is generally not created to go the 2800 meters that the drill went in the movie. They can only go as long as the communication cable created to tether the probe to the ship is (Hsu, 2010). Since the distance to the ocean floor of Europa is unknown, it leaves this length up to the creators of the probe. The probe can’t be that larger or heavy because it needs to travel to Europa in order to be useful. This means that the probe cannot go any deeper than 11 kilometers, the distance of one on Earth which is too large for space travel (Hsu,
For Europa, that is under the icy surface. In order for the astronauts to examine under the surface, they need a drill that will go through the ice and create a hole for a probe. The drill that they use looks to be a thermal drill with the underwater probe attached (Cordero, 27:21). The drill melts the ice upon impact signifying that a thermal drill is used instead of a mechanical drill or a laser. These thermal drills can cause tremors in the ice as seen in the movie just like any other drill because the surface of the moon is being split. The drilling along with the consistent pull from Jupiter and its other moons can cause serious tremors that can affect the drilling process which is why they used a thermal drill. This drill is generally not created to go the 2800 meters that the drill went in the movie. They can only go as long as the communication cable created to tether the probe to the ship is (Hsu, 2010). Since the distance to the ocean floor of Europa is unknown, it leaves this length up to the creators of the probe. The probe can’t be that larger or heavy because it needs to travel to Europa in order to be useful. This means that the probe cannot go any deeper than 11 kilometers, the distance of one on Earth which is too large for space travel (Hsu,