NASA is now looking for life on Jupiter’s moon Europa

Jupiter’s moon Europa is considered a promising candidate for a celestial body that makes life possible. NASA has now sent the “Europa Clipper” probe to get to the bottom of the conditions.

The US space agency has cleverly sent its probe “Europa Clipper” on its way to Jupiter’s moon Europa. A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Center on Monday. The probe, which weighs around 5.7 tons, is intended to investigate whether there are conditions for life in Europe.

“Europa Clipper” is intended to use the gravitational pull of other planets to reach Jupiter in five and a half years. To do this, the probe, which is about the size of a basketball court with its solar surfaces spread out, first flies past Mars and then back past Earth. It is then expected to reach Jupiter in 2030 and enter an orbit in which it circles the planet every 21 days.

It will repeatedly come close to Jupiter’s moon Europa, which is similar in size to our own moon. The space probe is expected to approach it to within 25,000 meters. The onboard radar will attempt to penetrate the moon’s ice layer, which is believed to be 15 to 24 kilometers or more thick. The ocean below could be 120 kilometers or even deeper.

Mission would have failed quickly

The Hubble space telescope has spotted geysers on Europa that appear to be erupting from the surface. Scientists are quickly becoming certain that a deeper, global ocean exists beneath Europe’s icy crust. And where there is water, there could also be life.

“Europa Clipper” will not search for life directly, but rather for the components that are essential for the preservation of life – organic compounds and other clues. In 2034, the probe is scheduled to crash on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, the largest moon in our solar system.

The 5.2 billion dollar (around 4.5 billion francs) expedition almost failed due to transistors. It was only in the spring that NASA learned that the probe’s transistors may be more susceptible to Jupiter’s intense radiation field. Clipper will have to endure the equivalent of several million X-ray images on each of the 49 flybys of Europe.

The space agency examined everything for months before concluding in September that the expedition could go ahead as planned. “Europa Clipper” contains nine instruments whose sensitive electronics are housed in a vault with dense zinc and aluminum walls to protect against radiation.

Messages for aliens

If conditions prove favorable for life on Europa, scientists believe there is the possibility of life elsewhere in our solar system, including on Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

Like many other research robots before it, “Europa Clipper” also has messages from Earth on board, including the word water in 104 languages, as well as a poem about the moon by the US poet Ada Limon and a silicon chip with the names of 2, 6 million people signed up for it.

tafi / AP