Quote:
Originally Posted by kahljorn
jovian planets are solid on the inside
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Pressure at the surface would likely require significant engineering enhancements, not to mention the RF interference making communication with the probe nearly impossible (remember Galileo? Lost contact about 1/3 of the way into Jupe's atmosphere, though that was more due to the local environment than interference). Tie this to the recent history NASA has had regarding landing probes on Mars (40% failure rate?) and my thoughts would be a Jupiter rover isn't worth the risk.
What about landing a probe on Io, Europa or Ganymede - each of which would be far more interesting from a scientific standpoint. easier to accomplish and we could study the insides of the moon without exclusively relying on craters. And, NASA has done it before, on Titan.