By Parker Soughers
On October 14th, NASA launched their latest mission to explore possible life outside our planet. This mission in particular was to study Jupiter’s 4th biggest moon: Europa–a moon that has multiple elements that make it possible to support life.
The Europa Clipper‒the satellite intended to perform reconnaissance on Europea‒is one of the largest satellites NASA has built for a planetary mission. It will perform a total of 49 different flybys to analyze the environments of Europa. One of these flybys will pass within 16 miles of Europa’s surface.
The results of the mission won’t be seen soon. In order to reach Europa, the satellite must travel 1.8 billion miles across the solar system. The Europa Clipper will reach Europa roughly around April of 2030.
The length of travel is not the only problem that NASA faced when designing the satellite. According to NASA, the Europa Clipper must fly through the “most punishing radiation environments in our solar system — second only to the Sun’s.” This is because of Jupiter’s magnetic field that is about 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s.
To combat this, NASA engineers enclosed the satellites payload and equipment in thick-walled vaults. These vaults, made of titanium and aluminum, work as radiation shields from energetic atomic particles, which severely hamper the Clipper’s electronics.
Why Europa? Of Jupiter’s 95 moons, Europa has the necessary elements to support life. Europa itself is an ocean world, meaning there are no prominent landmass on the surface. The surface of Europa is covered in the ocean’s crust of ice, due to the lack of heat from the sun that far out into the Solar System.
Director of NASA’s planetary science division, Gina DiBraccio, explained the goals of the mission in a press briefing the month prior: “This mission is going to help us to understand a complex piece of our solar system.” Specifically, NASA’s main goals for understanding the ice crust of Europa, as well as its geology and composition.
Should the mission be successful and NASA obtains the information they are looking for, the mission is set to conclude in June 2034, meaning we may only be a decade away from the knowledge that many have sought for lifetimes: is there other life in outer space?
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