Europa Ho!
The search for extraterrestrial life is targeting Jupiter’s icy moon Europa
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will travel to one of Jupiter’s largest moons to look for evidence of conditions that could support life.
by
February 19, 2024
We’ve known of Europa’s existence for more than four centuries, but for most of that time, Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon was just a pinprick of light in our telescopes—a bright and curious companion to the solar system’s resident giant. Over the last few decades, however, as astronomers have scrutinized it through telescopes and six spacecraft have flown nearby, a new picture has come into focus. Europa is nothing like our moon.
Observations suggest that its heart is a ball of metal and rock, surrounded by a vast saltwater ocean that contains more than twice as much water as is found on Earth. That massive sea is encased in a smooth but fractured blanket of cracked ice, one that seems to occasionally break open and spew watery plumes into the moon’s thin atmosphere.
For these reasons, Europa has captivated planetary scientists interested in the geophysics of alien worlds. All that water and energy—and hints of elements essential for building organic molecules —point to another extraordinary possibility. In the depths of its ocean, or perhaps crowded in subsurface lakes or below icy surface vents, Jupiter’s big, bright moon could host life.
“We think there’s an ocean there, everywhere,” says Bob Pappalardo, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “Essentially everywhere on Earth that there’s water, there’s life. Could there be life on Europa?”
Read more at Technology Review, here: https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/02/19/1087988/nasa-europa-clipper-mission-jupiter-extraterrestrial-life/?truid=%7CLINKID%7C&utm_source=the_download&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_term=%7CSUBCLASS%7C&utm_content=%7CDATE:m-d-Y%7C