Europa Clipper: the NASA mission that investigates the existence of life on Jupiter’s moon

Europa Clipper: the NASA mission that investigates the existence of life on Jupiter’s moon

An imposing NASA probe is getting ready to begin its long journey towards Europeone of the numerous satellites of Jupiterwhich will arrive in April 2030. The objective of the clipper mission is to determine whether our solar system supports life on another celestial body besides Earth. This is a world that the US space agency has not yet observed in such detail. Beneath its ice surface is an ocean of liquid waterscientists estimate.

The takeoff of the probe will be carried out from Cape Canaveralin the state of Floridaaboard a powerful SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. NASA indicated that the launch will not be before 12:06 local time on Monday (16:06 GMT).

What is the Europa Clipper probe like?

Landing of the European probe on Mars confirmed, but the module does not emit a signal

“Europe is one of the most promising places for the search for life beyond Earth”Gina DiBraccio, a NASA official, said at a press conference. The mission will not directly search for signs of life but will try to answer the question of its habitability: Does Europe have the conditions that allow life to exist? If so, then another mission will have to go to try to detect it.

“It’s an opportunity for us to explore not a world that may have been habitable billions of years ago,” like Mars, “but one that “it could be habitable right now”said Curt Niebur, in charge of the scientific part of the mission. The probe is the largest designed by NASA for interplanetary exploration, reaches 30 meters long with its extended solar panels, designed to capture the weak light on the way to Jupiter.

The first close-up images of Europe, whose existence has been known since 1610were made by the Voyager probe in 1979, which revealed the mysterious reddish lines on its surface. In the decade of 1990the Galileo probe confirmed the very probable presence of an ocean. This time, Europa Clipper carries several ultra-sophisticated instruments including cameras, a spectrograph, radars and a magnetometer.

Europa Clipper Mission

The mission must allow determine the structure and composition of its frozen surface, the depth and even the salinity of the eventual ocean. All in order to understand if the three ingredients necessary for life are found there: water, energy and some chemical compounds. If they exist, life could be in the ocean in the form of primitive bacteriaexplained Bonnie Buratti, deputy scientific officer of the mission. Although too deep for Europa Clipper to see it.

What if Europe was finally not habitable? “That would also open the way to a number of questions: Why do we think that and why isn’t it there?” said Nikki Fox, associate administrator at NASA. In five and a half years of travel to reach Jupiter The probe will travel 2.9 billion kilometers and from its arrival the main mission will last four years. The probe will 49 flybys of Europa, about 25 kilometers from the surface. Nails 4,000 people have been working for approximately a decade on this mission whose cost is 5.2 billion dollars. An investment justified by the importance of the data to be collected, according to NASA.

If our solar system reveals that there are two habitable worlds (Europe and Earth), “think about what this means when extending this result to the billions of other solar systems in this galaxy,” said Curt Niebur. “Even leaving aside the question of whether there is life on Europa, the question of habitability alone opens a new paradigm for the search for life in the galaxy,” he added. Europa Clipper will operate at the same time as the European space agency’s (ESA) Juice probe, which will study two other moons of Jupiter, Ganymede and Callisto, in addition to Europa.

Source: Ambito

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