Carnival of Space 395

Ever since the Europa mission had been given the official nod of approval by NASA, scientists have been giddy with excitement at the prospect of exploring a new world where life might reside. The likely model for the mission is the Europa Clipper, which will orbit Jupiter and fly by the moon multiple times. According to a Tuesday story in the New Scientist, researchers are mulling over how to use the Europa Clipper to search for life.

Ordinarily, detecting life on Europa using a remote sensing satellite would be problematic at best. Whatever life that might exist on Europa would reside in the subsurface ocean, deep beneath the ice crust, warmed by the tidal forces exerted by Jupiter. Accessing that ocean would require a lander with a drill that would penetrate the ice crust.

However, in 2013, data gathered by the Hubble space telescope suggested that geysers of water from the interior ocean were escaping through vents in the ice crust.

While attention has been focused on a multi-billion dollar mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, NASA is planning a number of new planetary missions. Most are grouped under the Discovery Program, small-scale missions with a cap of $450 million, and the New Frontier Program, which has a cap of $1 billion, according to a Tuesday story in Spaceflight Now.