On October 14, NASA launched a spacecraft named Europa Clipper to visit Jupiter and its moons. It is the largest spacecraft that NASA has ever launched towards another planetary system. Its mission is to conduct a detailed reconnaissance of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. The mission’s objective is to determine if Europa has the conditions that are suitable for life.
Strong evidence has been compiled thus far to support this possibility. In 1995, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft made multiple flybys of Europa and provided compelling data that a massive ocean exists under its frozen surface. Scientists believe this ocean could contain twice as much water as all of Earth’s oceans put together. More recently, the Hubble Space Telescope and Voyager spacecraft have provided surveillance data that showed water plumes erupting from Europa’s surface. The evidence suggests that Europa has the vital elements needed for life: water, organics, energy and stability. The mission’s aim is not to detect life. Rather, the main goal is to determine whether the environment below Europa’s surface could support life. Another goal is to determine the thickness of Europa’s outer layer and how the ocean below interacts with this zone.
The Europa Clipper will travel to Jupiter, which is 1.8 million miles from Earth, taking over five years to reach. The arrival date is set for April 11, 2030. Once there, the spacecraft will enter an orbit around Jupiter and execute a series of repeated flybys over a four-year period.
The Europa Clipper is equipped with sophisticated instruments to record and collect data. The instruments are designed to study the moon both inside and out. They will focus on many aspects of Europa, such as its core, rocky interior, subsurface ocean and atmosphere. Multiple cameras will record close and high-resolution images of the surface. They will create the first global map of the moon. A radar instrument will survey the frozen shell searching for subsurface water. Telecommunications equipment will study internal structure by measuring its gravitational field. The spacecraft will also focus on any spewing water vapor plumes which could provide a direct sample of the subsurface ocean composition.
The Europa Clipper mission is a major step in our efforts to explore the outer solar system. By examining Europa’s frozen surface and subsurface ocean, scientists hope to obtain answers to fundamental questions about the potential for life beyond Earth and improve our understanding of planetary environments.
