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Is Life Possible on a Jupiter Moon? NASA Goes to Investigate

A view of Jupiter's moon Europa created from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990's, according to NASA, obtained by Reuters May 14, 2018. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute/ Handout via Reuters
A view of Jupiter's moon Europa created from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990's, according to NASA, obtained by Reuters May 14, 2018. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute/ Handout via Reuters
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Is Life Possible on a Jupiter Moon? NASA Goes to Investigate

A view of Jupiter's moon Europa created from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990's, according to NASA, obtained by Reuters May 14, 2018. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute/ Handout via Reuters
A view of Jupiter's moon Europa created from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990's, according to NASA, obtained by Reuters May 14, 2018. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute/ Handout via Reuters

Is there anywhere else in our solar system that could support life? An imposing NASA probe is due to lift off on Monday on a five-and-a-half-year journey to Europa, one of Jupiter's many moons, to take the first detailed step toward finding out.

The Europa Clipper mission will allow the US space agency to uncover new details about the moon, which scientists believe could hold an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy surface.

Liftoff is scheduled for "no earlier than" Monday, October 14, from Cape Canaveral in Florida aboard a powerful SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, NASA said in a statement.

"Europa is one of the most promising places to look for life beyond Earth," said NASA official Gina DiBraccio at a news conference last month.

The mission will not look directly for signs of life but will instead look to answer the question: Does Europa contain the ingredients that would allow life to be present?

If it does, another mission would then have to make the journey to try and detect it.

"It's a chance for us to explore not a world that might have been habitable billions of years ago," like Mars, Europa Clipper program scientist Curt Niebur told reporters last month, "but a world that might be habitable today, right now."

The probe is the largest ever designed by NASA for interplanetary exploration.

It is 30 meters wide when its immense solar panels -- designed to capture the weak light that reaches Jupiter -- are fully extended.

- Primitive life? -

While Europa's existence has been known since 1610, the first close-up images were taken by the Voyager probes in 1979, which revealed mysterious reddish lines crisscrossing its surface.

The next probe to reach Jupiter's icy moon was NASA's Galileo probe in the 1990s, which found it was highly likely that the moon was home to an ocean.

This time, the Europa Clipper probe will carry a host of sophisticated instruments, including cameras, a spectrograph, radar, and a magnetometer to measure its magnetic forces.

The mission will look to determine the structure and composition of Europa's icy surface, its depth, and even the salinity of its ocean, as well as the way the two interact -- to find out, for example, if water rises to the surface in places.

The aim is to understand whether the three ingredients necessary for life are present: water, energy and certain chemical compounds.

If these conditions exist on Europa, life could be found in the ocean in the form of primitive bacteria, explained Bonnie Buratti, the mission's deputy project scientist.

But the bacteria would likely be too deep for the Europa Clipper to see.

And what if Europa isn't habitable after all? "That also opens up a whole wealth of questions: Why did we think this? And why is it not there?" said Nikki Fox, an associate administrator at NASA.

- 49 flybys -

The probe will cover 2.9 billion kilometers (1.8 billion miles) during its journey to Jupiter, with arrival expected in April 2030.

The main mission will last another four years.

The probe will make 49 close flybys over Europa, coming as close as 25 kilometers (16 miles) above the surface.

It will be subjected to intense radiation -- the equivalent of several million chest x-rays on each pass.

Some 4,000 people have been working on the $5.2 billion mission for around a decade.

NASA says the investment is justified by the importance of the data that will be collected.

If our solar system turns out to be home to two habitable worlds (Europa and Earth), "think of what that means when you extend that result to the billions and billions of other solar systems in this galaxy," said Niebur, the Europa Clipper program scientist.

"Setting aside the 'Is there life?' question on Europa, just the habitability question in and of itself opens up a huge new paradigm for searching for life in the galaxy," he added.

The Europa Clipper will operate at the same time as the European Space Agency's (ESA) Juice probe, which will study two other moons of Jupiter -- Ganymede and Callisto.

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NASA's Europa Clipper Spacecraft will Scour Jupiter Moon for the Ingredients for Life

This illustration provided by NASA depicts the Europa Clipper spacecraft over the moon, Europa, with Jupiter at background left. (NASA/JPL- Caltech via AP)
This illustration provided by NASA depicts the Europa Clipper spacecraft over the moon, Europa, with Jupiter at background left. (NASA/JPL- Caltech via AP)
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NASA's Europa Clipper Spacecraft will Scour Jupiter Moon for the Ingredients for Life

This illustration provided by NASA depicts the Europa Clipper spacecraft over the moon, Europa, with Jupiter at background left. (NASA/JPL- Caltech via AP)
This illustration provided by NASA depicts the Europa Clipper spacecraft over the moon, Europa, with Jupiter at background left. (NASA/JPL- Caltech via AP)

A NASA spacecraft is ready to set sail for Jupiter and its moon Europa, one of the best bets for finding life beyond Earth.

Europa Clipper will peer beneath the moon’s icy crust where an ocean is thought to be sloshing fairly close to the surface. It won’t search for life, but rather determine whether conditions there could support it. Another mission would be needed to flush out any microorganisms lurking there.

“It’s a chance for us to explore not a world that might have been habitable billions of years ago, but a world that might be habitable today — right now,” said program scientist Curt Niebur, The AP reported.

Its massive solar panels make Clipper the biggest craft built by NASA to investigate another planet. It will take 5 1/2 years to reach Jupiter and will sneak within 16 miles (25 kilometers) of Europa's surface — considerably closer than any other spacecraft.

Liftoff is targeted for this month aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Mission cost: $5.2 billion.

Europa, the superstar among Jupiter’s many moons One of Jupiter’s 95 known moons, Europa is almost the size of our own moon. It's encased in 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 could be 80 miles (120 kilometers) or more deep. The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted what appear to be geysers erupting from the surface. Discovered by Galileo in 1610, Europa is one of the four so-called Galilean moons of Jupiter, along with Ganymede, Io and Callisto.

Seeking conditions that support life What type of life might Europa harbor? Besides water, organic compounds are needed for life as we know it, plus an energy source. In Europa’s case that could be thermal vents on the ocean floor. Deputy project scientist Bonnie Buratti imagines any life would be primitive like the bacterial life that originated in Earth’s deep ocean vents. “We will not 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 sole job is to establish whether the moon could support life in its ocean or possibly in any pockets of water in the ice.

Supersized spacecraft When its solar wings and antennas are unfurled, Clipper is about the size of a basketball court — more than 100 feet (30 meters) end to end — and weighs nearly 13,000 pounds (6,000 kilograms). The supersized solar panels are needed because of Jupiter’s distance from the sun. The main body — about the size of a camper — is packed with nine science instruments, including radar that will penetrate the ice, cameras that will map virtually the entire moon and tools to tease out the contents of Europa’s surface and tenuous atmosphere. The name hearkens to the swift sailing ships of centuries past.

Circling Jupiter to fly by Europa The roundabout trip to Jupiter will span 1.8 billion miles (3 billion kilometers). For extra oomph, the spacecraft will swing past Mars early next year and then Earth in late 2026. It arrives at Jupiter in 2030 and begins science work the next year. While orbiting Jupiter, it will cross paths with Europa 49 times. The mission ends in 2034 with a planned crash into Ganymede — Jupiter’s biggest moon and the solar system's too.

Europa flybys pose huge radiation risk There’s more radiation around Jupiter than anywhere else in our solar system, besides the sun. Europa passes through Jupiter’s bands of radiation as it orbits the gas giant, making it especially menacing for spacecraft. That’s why Clipper’s electronics are inside a vault with dense aluminum and zinc walls. All this radiation would nix any life on Europa’s surface. But it could break down water molecules and, perhaps, release oxygen all the way down into the ocean that could possibly fuel sea life.

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

Other visitors to Jupiter and Europa NASA’s twin Pioneer spacecraft and then two Voyagers swept past Jupiter in the 1970s. The Voyagers provided the first detailed photos of Europa but from quite a distance. NASA’s Galileo spacecraft had repeated flybys of the moon during the 1990s, passing as close as 124 miles (200 kilometers). Still in action around Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has added to Europa’s photo album. Arriving at Jupiter a year after Clipper will be the European Space Agency’s Juice spacecraft, launched last year.

Ganymede and other possible ocean worlds Like Europa, Jupiter’s jumbo moon Ganymede is thought to host an underground ocean. But its frozen shell is much thicker — possibly 100 miles (160 kilometers) thick — making it tougher to probe the environment below. Callisto’s ice sheet may be even thicker, possibly hiding an ocean. Saturn’s moon Enceladus has geysers shooting up, but it’s much farther than Jupiter. Ditto for Saturn’s moon Titan, also suspected of having a subterranean sea. While no ocean worlds have been confirmed beyond our solar system, scientists believe they’re out there — and may even be relatively common.

Messages in a cosmic bottle Like many robotic explorers before it, Clipper bears messages from Earth. Attached to the electronics vault is a triangular metal plate. On one side is a design labeled “water words” with representations of the word for water in 104 languages. On the opposite side: a poem about the moon by US poet laureate Ada Limon and a silicon chip containing the names of 2.6 million people who signed up to vicariously ride along.