Is there life on a moon of Jupiter? NASA presents the space probe with which it wants to answer the question

The Clipper probe, built with a budget of 5 billion dollars, will be launched in October aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket bound for Europa, one of the dozens of moons of Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System.

The device will travel five years in space and initially pass by Mars, if all goes as planned, before placing an orbit around Jupiter and Europa in 2031.

“One of the fundamental questions that NASA wants to understand is this: ‘are we alone in the cosmos?'” said Bob Pappalardo, the mission’s science coordinator.

If evidence of a life form is discovered, “it would be a huge advance in understanding how widespread life is in the Universe,” he added.

The American probe is currently preserved in a sterile room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a center owned by NASA in California, accessible only to employees wearing head-to-toe protective suits.

All precautions were taken so that the probe would not carry any terrestrial microbes to the Europa satellite.

Once its mission is launched, Clipper will begin a detailed inspection of this Jupiter moon, which is comparable in size to the Moon and which scientists believe is covered in frozen water.

“We have instruments like cameras, spectrometers, a magnetometer and a radar that can (…) penetrate through the ice, reach the liquid water and come back to the surface to tell us how thick the ice is and where the liquid water is located ,” added Bob Pappalardo.

The mission coordinators do not expect to find “little green men” frolicking there: in fact, they are not necessarily looking for traces of life, but only favorable conditions for it.

Scientists already know that even in extreme climates on Earth, under the ice cap, in light-free environments, small life forms can exist.

“If the moons around planets far from their stars can host life, then I think that the number of possibilities in the Solar System, in the Universe, for life to be present, increases considerably,” said Jordan Evans, Project Manager within the Europa mission. Clipper.

100,000 chest x-rays

Studying the moon Europa will not be easy, however: a strong radiation field surrounds this natural satellite of Jupiter and it could damage the instruments of the Clipper probe, which will receive the equivalent of 100,000 chest X-rays on it with each rotation performed around its objective.

Because of the distance, the data obtained by the probe will need 45 minutes to reach the mission control center.

And despite the enormous solar panels that will be deployed once the device reaches space, it will be very difficult for the Clipper probe to be kept operational for a very long time, said Jordan Evans.

“Close to Earth, solar panels could power 20 homes continuously. But near Jupiter, only a few light bulbs and small devices”, because of the great distance that separates the giant planet from the Sun, he explained.

The mission, whose planning began in the late 1990s, is expected to end around 2034, when Clipper will have reached the end of its useful life.

The last stage of this probe’s mission will be to crash it on a moon of the planet Jupiter, said Tim Larson, deputy director of the project.

“When we are done with the scientific mission, the way to destroy the probe will be to crash it on another celestial body in the Jovian system that will be available for this device”, he explained.

For the moment, NASA plans to direct the Clipper probe to Ganymede, the largest natural satellite of the planet Jupiter, the American researcher also said.