Searching for the ingredients for life on Europa will be a challenge for NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft. Surviving the high radiation of the icy moon will be even harder.
If life exists elsewhere in the solar system, it may well reside in the ocean of Jupiter's icy moon Europa. The mysterious world appears to have the necessary ingredients for life as we know it. Beneath its frozen exterior is a single body of water that's so deep it may hold more liquid than all of the oceans on Earth. Europa is believed to have enough carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and other key elements to form the building blocks of living organisms.
At that distance, Clipper's magnetometer will be able to measure the depth and salinity of the moon's ocean; its mass spectrometer will study the ocean's chemical makeup; and its ultraviolet spectrograph will search for plumes of water vapor escaping through the icy shell. But even quick flybys aren't enough to protect the spacecraft's suite of instruments from Jupiter's tough radiation environment.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
NASA September 2023 temperature data shows continued record warmingContinuing the temperature trend from this summer, September 2023 was the hottest September on record, according to scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The month also set the record for the highest temperature anomaly—the largest difference from the long-term average.
Read more »
NASA Seeks Development of Universal Payload InterfaceNASA is calling on innovators to help solve some of the challenges in rapidly testing technology payloads across a wide range of commercial flight vehicles
Read more »
NASA's Lucy Probe Phones Home From 49-Million-Mile Journey to AsteroidThe spacecraft is 4.7 million miles away from Dinkinesh, but still has another 16 million miles to travel before their rendezvous.
Read more »
Prada to design spacesuits for NASA's Artemis III lunar missionAxiom Space revealed prototypes of the AxEMU spacesuits earlier this year. Now, Prada engineers will join the team working throughout the design process on the Artemis III spacesuits.
Read more »
Rocketing to the Moon: NASA’s Artemis II Core Stage Nears Final AssemblyScience, Space and Technology News 2023
Read more »
NASA delays spacewalk a 2nd time due to leak on International Space StationElizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. She was contributing writer for Space.com for 10 years before joining full-time.
Read more »