NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will scan Jupiter’s moon for the ingredients of life

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A NASA spacecraft Ready to set sail for Jupiter and its planet Moon Europeone of your best bets for finding extraterrestrial life.

Europe Clipper will peer under Icy moon crust The ocean is believed to flow near the surface. He will not search for life, but will determine whether the conditions there can support it. Another task will be needed to flush out any microorganisms lurking there.

“It’s an opportunity for us to explore not a world that could have been habitable billions of years ago, but a world that might be habitable today — right now,” said program scientist Kurt Niebuhr.

Its massive solar panels make Clipper the largest rover NASA has built to explore another planet. It will take 5 1/2 years to reach Jupiter, and it will sneak within 16 miles (25 kilometers) of Europa’s surface — much closer than any other spacecraft.

The rocket will launch this month aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Mission cost: $5.2 billion.

Europa, the big star among Jupiter’s many moons

Europa is one of Jupiter’s 95 known moons, and is roughly the size of our own moon. It is covered by an ice sheet estimated to be 10 miles to 15 miles or more (15 kilometers to 24 kilometers) thick. Scientists believe this frozen crust hides an ocean that may be 80 miles (120 kilometers) or more deep. The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted what appear to be geysers erupting from the surface. Europa was discovered by Galileo in 1610, and is one of the four moons of Jupiter known as Galileo, along with Ganymede, Io, and Callisto.

Searching for conditions that support life

What kind of life might Europe harbor? Besides water, organic compounds are needed for life as we know it, as well as an energy source. In the case of Europa, this could be thermal vents on the ocean floor. Deputy project scientist Bonnie Buratti imagines that any life would be as primitive as bacterial life that arose in the vents of Earth’s deep oceans. “We won’t know from this mission because we can’t see that deep,” she said. Unlike missions to Mars where habitability is one of many questions, Clipper’s only mission is to determine whether the Moon can support life in its surroundings or perhaps in any water pockets in the ice.

Huge spacecraft

When its wings and solar antennas are deployed, Clipper is roughly the size of a basketball court — more than 100 feet (30 meters) from end to end — and weighs about 13,000 pounds (6,000 kg). Huge solar panels are needed because of Jupiter’s distance from the Sun. The main body — roughly the size of a rover — is packed with nine scientific instruments, including radar that will penetrate the ice, cameras that will map almost the entire moon, and instruments to extract the contents of Europa’s surface and fragile atmosphere. The name is reminiscent of the fast sailing ships of centuries past.

Orbiting Jupiter to fly across Europe

The circular journey to Jupiter will span a distance of 1.8 billion miles (3 billion kilometers). For added gravity, the spacecraft will swing by 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 intersect Europa 49 times. The mission will end in 2034 with a planned collision with Ganymede, the largest of Jupiter’s moons and also the Solar System.

Europa flights pose a significant radiation risk

There is more radiation around Jupiter than anywhere else in our solar system, besides the Sun. Europa passes through Jupiter’s radiation bands as it orbits the gas giant, making it particularly dangerous for spacecraft. That’s why the Clipper electronics are housed inside a vault with dense aluminum and zinc walls. All this radiation would wipe out any life on Europa’s surface. But they can break down water molecules, potentially releasing oxygen all the way into the ocean, which could feed marine life.

Earlier this year, NASA was in a state of panic that the spacecraft’s many transistors might not withstand intense radiation. But after months of analysis, engineers concluded that the mission could continue as planned.

Other visitors to Jupiter and Europe

NASA’s twin Pioneer spacecraft and then the Voyager spacecraft swept past Jupiter in the 1970s. Voyagers has provided the first detailed images of Europa, but from a distance. NASA’s Galileo spacecraft made repeated flybys of the Moon during the 1990s, passing as close as 124 miles (200 kilometers). NASA’s Juno spacecraft is still orbiting Jupiter, and has added to Europa’s photo album. ESA’s Joyce spacecraft, launched last year, will arrive at Jupiter a year after Clipper.

Ganymede and other possible ocean worlds

Like Europa, Jupiter’s large moon Ganymede is thought to host an underground ocean. But its frozen crust is thicker — perhaps 100 miles (160 kilometers) thick — making it more difficult to explore the environment beneath. Callisto’s ice sheet may be thicker, perhaps hiding an ocean. Saturn’s moon Enceladus has hot springs, but it is much farther away than Jupiter. The same applies to Saturn’s moon Titan, which is also suspected of having a subterranean sea. While it has not been confirmed that ocean worlds exist outside our solar system, scientists believe they exist there, and may be relatively common.

Messages in a cosmic bottle

Like many robotic explorers before him, Clipper carries messages from Earth. Attached to the electronics vault is a triangular metal plate. On one side is a design titled “Water Words” with representations of the word water in 104 languages. On the other side: a poem about the moon by American poet Ada Lemon and a silicon chip containing the names of 2.6 million people who have registered to ride indirectly.

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