- NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft is intended to explore Jupiter's moon Europa, one of the leading candidates for discovering life beyond Earth.
- Europa Clipper will assess whether conditions on Europa, such as the ocean beneath the icy crust, could support life.
- The spacecraft, NASA's largest built to explore another planet, will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.
A NASA spacecraft is ready to sail toward Jupiter and its moon Europa, one of the best chances of finding life beyond Earth.
Europa Clipper will look beneath the Moon's icy crust, where the ocean is thought to flow quite close to the surface. It will not look for life, but rather determine whether the conditions there will be able to support it. Another mission would be necessary to flush out any microorganisms lurking there.
“This is a chance for us to explore not a world that might have been habitable billions of years ago, but a world that might be habitable today – right now,” said program scientist Curt Niebur.
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Thanks to its massive solar panels, Clipper is the largest spacecraft built by NASA to explore another planet. It will take 5 1/2 years to reach Jupiter and will sneak within 26 miles of Europa's surface — much closer than any other spacecraft.
An illustration provided by NASA shows the Europa Clipper spacecraft over the Moon, Europa, with Jupiter in the background. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP)
The launch is scheduled for this month aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Space Center. Kennedy. Mission cost: $5.2 billion.
Europa, a superstar among Jupiter's many moons
Europa, one of Jupiter's 95 known moons, is almost the size of our moon. It is covered by an ice sheet estimated to be 10-15 miles or more thick. Scientists believe that behind the frozen crust lies an ocean more than 130 km deep. The Hubble Space Telescope spotted what appear to be geysers rising from the surface. Discovered by Galileo in 1610, Europa is one of the four so-called Galilean moons of Jupiter, along with Ganymede, Io and Callisto.
Searching for life-sustaining conditions
What kind of life can there be in Europe? In addition to water, life as we know it requires organic compounds and a source of energy. In the case of Europe, these may be thermal vents on the ocean floor. Deputy project scientist Bonnie Buratti imagines that any life would be primitive, much like the bacterial life that arose in Earth's deep-sea vents. “We won't know that from this mission because we can't see that deep,” she said. Unlike missions to Mars, where one of the many questions is habitability, Clipper's only task is to determine whether the Moon could support life in the ocean or possibly in any bodies of water in the ice.
Super-sized spaceship
With its wings and solar antennas deployed, Clipper is about the size of a basketball court – more than 100 feet from end to end – and weighs almost 13,000 pounds. Huge solar panels are needed because of Jupiter's distance from the Sun. The main part – about the size of a camper – is packed with nine scientific instruments, including an ice-penetrating radar, cameras that will map virtually the entire moon, and tools to study Europa's surface contents and delicate atmosphere. The name refers to fast sailing ships from centuries ago.
The illustration provided by NASA shows the Europa Clipper spacecraft above the surface of the moon Europa, in the foreground, and Jupiter in the rear. (NASA/JPL-Caltech via AP)
It circles Jupiter to fly past Europa
The circular trip to Jupiter will cover 2.8 billion miles. To gain additional power, the spacecraft will fly past Mars early next year and then Earth in late 2026. It will reach Jupiter in 2030 and begin science work the following year. As it orbits Jupiter, it will cross Europa's path 49 times. The mission ends in 2034 with a planned impact on Ganymede – the largest moon of Jupiter and the Solar System.
Flying near Europe poses a huge radiation risk
There is more radiation around Jupiter than anywhere else in the solar system except the Sun. Europa passes through Jupiter's radiation bands as it orbits the gas giant, making it particularly dangerous to spacecraft. That's why the Clipper's electronics are housed in a vault with dense walls of aluminum and zinc. All this radiation would destroy any life on Europa's surface. But it could break up water molecules and perhaps release oxygen all the way to the ocean, which could fuel marine life.
Earlier this year, NASA panicked that many of the spacecraft's transistors might not withstand the intense radiation. However, after months of analysis, engineers concluded that the mission could proceed as planned.
Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, was photographed with its two satellites, Io on the left and Europa on the right, in March 1979. The photo was taken by the Voyager 1 space probe. (Space Frontiers/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Others visiting Jupiter and Europa
NASA's twin Pioneer spacecraft and then two Voyager probes flew past Jupiter in the 1970s. Voyagers provided the first detailed photos of Europa, but from quite a distance. In the 1990s, NASA's Galileo spacecraft made multiple flybys of the Moon, coming within just 200 km. Still in action around Jupiter, NASA's Juno spacecraft has been added to Europa's photo album. A year after Clipper, the European Space Agency's Juice spacecraft, launched last year, will reach Jupiter.
Ganymede and other possible ocean worlds
Like Europa, Jupiter's large moon Ganymede is believed to harbor an underground ocean. However, its frozen crust is much thicker – perhaps 100 miles thick – making it difficult to study the environment below. The Callisto ice sheet may be even thicker and possibly hide the ocean. There are geysers shooting out on Saturn's moon Enceladus, but it is much further away than Jupiter. The same goes for Titan, a moon of Saturn, also suspected of having an underground sea. Although no ocean worlds have been confirmed outside our solar system, scientists believe they exist there – and may even be relatively common.
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News in a space bottle
Like many robotic explorers before him, Clipper carries messages from Earth. A triangular metal plate is attached to the electronics vault. On one side is a “water words” design, representing the word for water in 104 languages. On the opposite side: a poem about the Moon by American poet Ada Limon and a silicon chip containing the names of 2.6 million people who have signed up to travel vicariously.
