Exploring Jupiter’s Ocean Moon - Europa Clipper Launch Window Opens on Monday

NASA / SpaceX Europa Clipper is set for launch on Monday weather permitting , the Spacecraft will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy and all being well should go into orbit around Jupiter in 2030 ready to make 49 flybys of Europa , typically for NASA Europa Clipper is not going to be looking for life itself but rather to see if the Moon has the conditions to sustain life in its suspected global Ocean.

Nevertheless it's a mission many have waited a long time to see launch so hopefully on Monday and weather permitting that wait will come to an end , then we have to wait 5 years for it to get there.


The science instruments onboard Europa Clipper are .....

Europa Imaging System (EIS)
A wide-angle camera and a narrow-angle camera, each with an eight-megapixel sensor, will produce high-resolution color and stereoscopic images of Europa.

Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS)
The thermal imager uses infrared light to distinguish warmer regions on Europa where warm liquid water may be near the surface or might have erupted onto the surface.

Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europa-UVS)
By collecting ultraviolet light with a telescope, and creating images, the mission’s ultraviolet spectrograph will help determine the composition of Europa’s atmospheric gases and surface materials.

Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE)
The mission’s infrared spectrometer will map the distribution of ices, salts, organics, and the warmest hotspots on Europa.

Europa Clipper Magnetometer (ECM)
The magnetometer investigation aims to confirm that Europa’s ocean exists, measure its depth and salinity, and measure the moon’s ice shell thickness.

Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS)
Europa’s ionosphere, and plasma trapped in Jupiter’s magnetic field, distort magnetic fields near Europa.

Gravity/Radio Science
Europa and its gravity field flex as the moon’s non-circular orbit carries it closer, then farther, from Jupiter.

Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON)
Ice-penetrating radar will probe Europa’s icy shell for the moon’s suspected ocean and study the ice’s structure and thickness.

MAss Spectrometer for Planetary EXploration/Europa (MASPEX)
The mass spectrometer will analyze gases in Europa’s faint atmosphere and possible plumes. It will study the chemistry of the moon’s suspected subsurface ocean

SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA)
Tiny meteorites eject bits of Europa’s surface into space, and a subsurface ocean or reservoirs might vent material into space as plumes.
europa.nasa.gov...

a reply to: gortex

Wow. That's a lot of instruments.

a reply to: gortex

Great post! S/F. Europa is right in Jupiter’s radiation field.

It’s amazing how are advances will allow this craft to maximize potential with all its amazing systems.

a reply to: gortex

Wow, thanks for sharing! Looks like a hell of a mission!

Personally I am in on the panspermia idea that life is ubiquitous in the universe. A rare but inevitable out come brought about by the interactions of all the forces of the universe.

Giventhe proper conditions that would be much broader then the sliver of conditions we experience here on earth. I expect we will find much life once we start really looking.

However I feel like beings that have managed to pull themselves out of the natural evolutionary race by way of technology to be much much much rarer. For we would see their footprint or actions effecting our environment the same way we see humans effect the earth.

We do see this allegedly on a few candidate planets that may show signs of artificial light but again we only just recently had the ability to look.

That all said I believe animals with true egos are a mystery and how and why this sense of self different from the sense of body ever came into being at all. But that leads down the path of the spiritual.
I honestly think that if/when we get to space we probably will be much closer to Elysium or avatar then Star Trek. I’d rather us be like Star Trek but I just don’t think that’s in our deck of cards.

I’d like to add that the planets that we think might have artificially made light could in theory still be light created by organisms. Their could be for example and environment highly conducive to massive amounts of microbes like algae that could be bio luminescence. And what we see is a massive glowing bacterial mat. Just a thought I had.

a reply to: gortex