Curt Godwin

February 9th, 2017

An artists representation of a Europa Lander on the surface of the Jovian moon. Image credit: NASA

Members of a NASA Science Definition Team (SDT) recently completed a report on the science value for a proposed Europa landerand gave design recommendations for the notional explorer. The search for evidence life on the icy moon is near the top of the list.

Scientists believe Europa has an active subsurface ocean, warmed by tidal heating, and enriched by compounds created from the constant bombardment of the icy crust by charged particles streaming from Jupiter. (Click to enlarge) Image credit: NASA

Though Europa is much further from the Sun than is Earth more than 483 millionmiles (777 million kilometers), compared to 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) for Earth scientists have long hypothesized that the icy moon harbors a liquid water ocean beneath its frozen crust.

The presence of liquid water is considered to be an essential ingredient for the evolution of living organisms, and Europa may have twice as muchwater beneath its crust than all of Earths oceans combined.

This liquid environmentmay be enrichedwith chemical compounds created by the bombardment of Europas surface by particles streaming from Jupiters intense magnetic fields, thereby providingan energy source upon which organisms could thrive.

With the ocean likely being in contact with a rocky surface deep within the moon, the three key ingredients water, energy, and organic compounds upon which life is built may be in abundance on the Jovian satellite.

The fundamental goal of the mission would be to look for the direct evidence of life on Europa.

The SDT was given the responsibilityto develop a series of criteria to be used to determine if life had, indeed, been found. To this end, the teammade recommendationson the type and quantity of science instruments to be carried on the lander to accomplish this task.

However, looking for life wont be the landers soleobjective.

Scientists and engineers expect there will be subsequent missions to Europa, so the lander will be designed to gather as much dataabout the icy moon, and its subsurface ocean, as possible. This information will greatly benefit future missions to Europa, perhaps leading to an exploration of the moons subsurface ocean.

Though the destination may bethe same, the Europa Lander is an entirely separate mission from the larger mission to the Jovian system. Popularlycalled the Europa Clipper, the orbiterwill carry out a detailed exploration of its namesake moon as it orbits Jupiter once every 45 days.

Data gathered from that mission, tentatively scheduled for the early 2020s, will help scientists and engineers fine-tune the mission for the lander. The radiation-hardened orbiter will make a pass of Europaevery two weeks, many of which will be close flybys of the moon.

The lander, though, is still very much in its early design phase. NASA will hold two town hall meetings to discuss the SDTs reportand will assess the feedback from thescience community.

Video courtesy of NASA / JPL

Tagged: Europa Europa Clipper Europa Lander Jupiter NASA The Range

Curt Godwin has been a fan of space exploration for as long as he can remember, keeping his eyes to the skies from an early age. Initially majoring in Nuclear Engineering, Curt later decided that computers would be a more interesting - and safer - career field. He's worked in education technology for more than 20 years, and has been published in industry and peer journals, and is a respected authority on wireless network engineering. Throughout this period of his life, he maintained his love for all things space and has written about his experiences at a variety of NASA events, both on his personal blog and as a freelance media representative.

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Goals for NASA's proposed Europa Lander begin to crystallize - SpaceFlight Insider