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Everywhere there’s water on Earth, there’s life. Does that hold true elsewhere in our solar system?
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will investigate Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, which — with its subsurface ocean — is one of the most promising places in our solar system to find environments capable of supporting life. While Europa Clipper isn’t a life-detection mission, it will be the first to conduct a detailed survey of this icy moon to answer questions about Europa’s potential habitability and composition.
The mission’s main goals are to determine the thickness of Europa’s icy shell; confirm the presence of an ocean; investigate the make-up of that ocean; and characterize the geology of the surface. The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter and make approximately 50 flybys of Europa. It’s equipped with a powerful suite of instruments that will work in sync to gather measurements and high-resolution images.
Europa Clipper is expected to launch in October 2024 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will arrive at the Jupiter system in 2030.
