A question probably simple for someone else...

[seawasp]

... but that would require me to do a lot of potentially-miscalculation fraught work on my own:

Is it possible to have a geostationary (or europastationary?) orbit around Europa, and if so, at what altitude from the surface of the moon woudl that be?

Comments

[k-kinnison.livejournal.com]

IMHO it would have to be at the "Trojan" points (L4, L5 la grange points) since Europa's rotation is tidally locked to Jupiter and those wouldn't be very close to Europa... i am guessing around 100,000 km or more away.

[gary-jordan.livejournal.com]

I should think that the L1 or L2 points would better meet the concept of a "Europasynchronous" orbit than a Trojan position. I'm not sure how stable the points would be, what with Jupiter's magnetic fields, or if the L1 and L2 points are sufficiently distant from Europa's core to not be influenced by atmosphere.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

The only way to do this would be to put the object in orbit around Jupiter in close proximity to Europa. This would work for satellites ahead of and trailing Europa. Any other position would require constant adjustments to maintain position.

[k-kinnison.livejournal.com]

oooh. looky what i found.

http://www.orbitsimulator.com/formulas/LagrangePointFinder.html

looks like L1 or L2 (if possible) is only about 13728km away from Europa (L2) or 13543km away (L1). But you would need about 14km/s of velocity to maintain position

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

Although that does assume circular orbits.

[arcadiagt5.livejournal.com]

Which introduces a need for ongoing corrections to the positioning. Depending on what the Evil Author (TM) is up to this may actually be dramatically convenient...