Searching for life on one of Jupiter’s icy moons

We've known of Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, Europa, for more than four centuries, but for most of that time, it 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. In this edition of What’s Next in Tech, learn about the hunt for alien life focusing on this icy moon. 

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NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will travel to one of Jupiter's largest moons to look for evidence of conditions that could support life.

As it turns out, 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 may eventually get some answers. Later this year, NASA plans to launch Europa Clipper, the largest-ever craft designed to visit another planet. The $5 billion mission, scheduled to reach Jupiter in 2030, will spend four years analyzing this moon to determine whether it could support life.

It’s unlikely that the mission will beam back a definitive answer to the question of extraterrestrial life. What it will do is get us closer than ever before to answers, by identifying the telltale chemical, physical, and geological signatures of habitability—whether a place is a suitable environment for life to emerge and thrive. The payoff for confirming these signs on Europa would be huge. Read the story.

Get ahead with these related stories:

1. Are we alone in the universe? — Scientists are training machine-learning models and designing instruments to hunt for life on other worlds.
2. Inside NASA’s bid to make spacecraft as small as possible — When it comes to exploring the solar system, we must grapple with the hard limits of physics.
3. What’s next for the moon — Robots, and then humans, are going back to the lunar surface. Here’s what they’ll be doing.

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech via Wikimedia Commons; Craft NASA/JPL-Caltech/SWRI/MSSS; Image Processing: Kevin M. Gill