Europa-Clipper Sets Sail for a New Ocean | High Point Scientific (2025)

Water is the primary ingredient needed to support life, at least here on Earth. Observing the solar system through past missions, we’ve found that liquid water is surprisingly abundant. Mars has aquifers beneath its surface, likely remnants from its ancient, prehistoric ocean. The Moon even has water ice in its polar regions, permanently frozen in craters that never see the light of day. Then there’s Europa—a moon of Jupiter, which appears to have abundant water beneath its hard, icy surface. This water is heated by the immense tidal forces created by Europa and Jupiter’s cosmic dance, and the ice may offer protection from the harsh radiation environment generated by Jupiter. It is entirely possible that some form of life may exist on Europa, and such a discovery would represent a cornerstone in NASA’s search for extraterrestrial life. To help answer these questions, NASA has built and launched the Europa Clipper, a mission focused on exploring the possibility of life-supporting environments on Jupiter's moon Europa. The mission launched in October 2024 and is expected to arrive at Jupiter in 2030. This article will explain some of Europa Clipper’s mission objectives and how it may find evidence of life on this frozen moon.

Mission Objectives

Europa Clipper’s mission is straightforward—seek out Europa’s subsurface ocean and probe for any signs of life. The mission aims to assess if there are habitable areas beneath Europa’s icy surface by investigating the ice shell, ocean, and overall composition of the moon. Europa Clipper’s three main science objectives are to understand the structure of Europa's ice shell, the depth and salinity of the ocean beneath it, and to map the moon’s surface geology. By characterizing the water within the ice, scientists can study how it interacts with the thick ice layer and monitor for any signs of habitability and geological activity.

Europa’s subsurface ocean makes it one of the prime candidates for life in our solar system, and Europa Clipper will provide critical insights into the moon’s habitability potential. A broad scientific consensus exists that Europa likely has an ocean under its thick ice layer. This theory developed from an initial hypothesis that tidal flexing could heat the ice beneath the crust enough to allow for liquid water, with the ice acting as a protective barrier. The first evidence of this was the "chaos" terrain of the icy crust, first observed by Voyager and then in greater detail by the Galileo mission in the 1990s. Surface observations showed that the icy surface was marked by long cracks, ridges, and icy plates, suggesting tectonic-like activity. This indicated that a liquid layer might interact with the icy crust. More recently, the Hubble Space Telescope observed plumes on Europa reaching about 20 times the height of Mt. Everest, which may be gigantic geysers of water being ejected from pockets of liquid within the icy crust or from the subsurface ocean itself.

It’s unknown if this subsurface ocean, should it exist, can support life. While some form of liquid water almost certainly exists on Europa, it’s possible it may be too salty for life to emerge. Salt increases water's salinity, which lowers its freezing point, making it harder to freeze by disrupting ice crystal formation. However, high salinity also creates a challenging environment for life, as seen in the Dead Sea, where extreme salinity—about ten times that of typical seawater—deprives life of oxygen and essential nutrients. Still, halophiles exist in the Dead Sea, thriving in high-salt environments, and similar organisms could hypothetically exist on Europa. The Europa Clipper mission may uncover more concrete evidence of life. Its Surface Dust Analyzer (SUDA) spectrometer payload will measure the composition of small solid particles ejected from Europa, which may provide evidence of key signatures of life beneath the ice.

Flyby Strategy and Spacecraft Design

Europa Clipper will conduct 44 close flybys of Europa, capturing high-resolution data from various locations to study the entire moon’s surface and composition. Equipped with large solar arrays and robust instruments, Europa Clipper is the largest planetary spacecraft NASA has built, allowing it to operate efficiently even at Jupiter’s distance from the Sun. The spacecraft is powered by both a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) and massive solar panels, similar to the power sources for the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers on Mars. The solar panels will provide about 100 watts of power to the spacecraft. Batteries will provide stored power while the spacecraft is in Europa’s shadow. To withstand Jupiter's intense radiation, Europa Clipper’s electronics are housed in a protective radiation vault, inspired by the Juno mission. The spacecraft carries a variety of scientific payloads, including the SUDA payload mentioned earlier. There is also a thermal imager known as E-THEMIS, which will provide imagery of Europa in infrared. Other cameras on Europa-Clipper can capture in visible and ultraviolet light, returning beautiful photos and other useful scientific information. A magnetometer known as the Europa Clipper Magnetometer (ECM) will help characterize the magnetic fields around Europa and how the subsurface ocean interacts with it.

Europa Clipper launched on October 14, 2024 from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. Europa Clipper will arrive at Jupiter in 2030, after a six year journey. Enroute to Juptier, Europa Clipper will perform functional checkouts of its systems and collect imagery of Mars in 2025 and Earth in 2026 during gravitational flybys. Tune back in as this mission progresses!