The Europa Clipper mission aims to explore Jupiter’s moon, Europa, to determine if the ocean beneath its icy crust could potentially support life.
The spacecraft will perform 49 flybys of Europa, coming as close as 25 km, to map almost the entire moon. It will use cameras, spectrometers, ice-penetrating radar, and a magnetometer to gather data on the moon’s surface, atmosphere, and subsurface ocean.
Europa consists of an ice crust that is 15-25 km thick, an ocean that is 60-150 km deep, an interior made of silicate rock, and a core composed of iron. Its diameter is 3,138 km, similar to Earth’s moon.
Scientists believe Europa’s salty ocean could support life because it contains essential building blocks such as carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. Additionally, the ocean is believed to have twice the amount of water as all of Earth’s oceans combined, and it may have hydrothermal vent activity, providing chemical energy sources necessary for life.
The Europa Clipper is equipped with cameras and spectrometers to study the moon’s surface and atmosphere, an ice-penetrating radar to map the ice shell in 3D, and a magnetometer to characterize the subsurface ocean.
The mission will look for signs such as chemical energy sources, sub-surface lakes, hydrothermal vent activity, and water plumes that may contain organic molecules, indicating potential life-supporting conditions.
The Europa Clipper is expected to reach Jupiter’s orbit by 2030.
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