According to the scientific accessibility metric, why does Enceladus rank higher than Europa?

Answer

Enceladus allows for plume sampling while Europa requires landing and drilling.

The accessibility ranking of planetary bodies is determined by how easily researchers can obtain data from the interior. Europa and Ganymede fall into the category of low accessibility because they possess thick ice shells that would require advanced technology to drill through safely. In contrast, Enceladus offers high accessibility. Because the moon naturally ejects its subsurface material into orbit via its icy plumes, scientists can analyze the internal composition by flying a probe through these plumes. This bypasses the need for the extremely complex and risky operations of landing on the surface and boring into a deep, frozen shell.

According to the scientific accessibility metric, why does Enceladus rank higher than Europa?

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