NASA spacecraft to study whether Jupiter's moon Europa could support life By Reuters

Written by Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – NASA will launch a spacecraft to Jupiter's moon Europa, considered one of the most promising places in our solar system to search for life beyond Earth, to find out if the ice-covered world is believed to have a vast underground ocean. .

The US space agency's solar-powered Europa Clipper spacecraft will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, carrying nine science instruments. After traveling 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion km) on a journey lasting about 5-1/2 years, the Europa Clipper will enter orbit around Jupiter in 2030.

After delays caused by Hurricane Milton, NASA set a tentative launch time of 12:06 pm ET (1606 GMT) on Monday.

Scientists are very interested in the sea of ​​salty liquid water that has previously been noted to reside beneath Europa's ice caps.

“There is strong evidence that the ingredients for life exist on Europa. But we have to go there to find it,” said planetary scientist Bonnie Buratti of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mission's project science director.

“Just to emphasize: we are not in the business of seeing life. We are just looking at the conditions of life,” added Buratti.

The Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for a planetary mission, measuring 100 feet (30.5 meters) long, about 58 feet (17.6 meters) wide and weighing 13,000 pounds (6,000 kg). It is larger than a basketball court due to the size of the solar array that collects sunlight to power scientific instruments, electronics and other subsystems.

The spacecraft will fly by Mars, then return to Earth, using the gravity of each planet to increase its momentum as a dynamo. It has three main scientific goals: to measure the thickness of Europa's outer ice layer and its interaction with the subsurface below, to determine the moon's composition, and to determine its geology.

NASA plans to have its spacecraft make 49 close-bys of Europa over a three-year period.

Europa's diameter is about 1,940 miles (3,100 km) from the equator, about 90% of our moon. Europa's ice sheet is currently believed to be 15-25 kilometers thick, floating on top of an ocean 60-150 miles deep.

SEA WORLD

This month is considered “the land of the sea.” Although Europa is a quarter the size of Earth, its subsurface ocean may contain twice as much water as Earth's oceans.

“As a sea world, Europa is very interesting. And this mission will help us understand a complex part of our solar system,” said Gina DiBraccio, deputy director of NASA's planetary science division.

Sea worlds, says DiBraccio, may be the most common type of body outside our solar system.

“Clipper will be the first deep mission that will allow us to demonstrate habitability on what may be the most common type of built-up Earth in the universe,” DiBraccio said.

Despite its hostile and cold environment, scientists believe that Europa can support life. Buratti noted that there are three main requirements for life to form: liquid water, some chemistry – mainly organic compounds that can serve as food for any primitive organisms – and a source of energy.

Europa receives only about 4% of the solar radiation that Earth receives – five times as much as the Sun. But Buratti noted that Europa fluctuates as its orbit approaches and moves away from Jupiter, due to the planet's massive gravitational pull – a process that produces heat on the moon.

“That is the source of strength we have,” said Buratti.

At the bottom of Europa's ocean, where the water meets the rocky mantle, there may be hot spots where heat releases chemical energy.

“They may be similar to hot spots in Earth's deep oceans where ancient life existed and where life may have originated on Earth,” Buratti said.

The spacecraft's MASPEX instrument will sample gases to examine Europa's ocean, surface and atmospheric chemistry. MASPEX will look for “complex organic molecules that could provide food, if primitive organisms exist,” Buratti added.

Jupiter is our largest planet in our solar system. Among its 95 officially known moons, Europa is the fourth largest, after Ganymede, Callisto and Io. Europa orbits about 417,000 miles (671,000 km) from Jupiter.

Buratti said that research projects like this always reveal something “we would never have imagined.”

“There will be something – the unknown – that will be so great that we can't imagine it yet,” Buratti said. “That's what makes me so happy.”