Europa Archives

January 16, 2023July 28, 2023 by Matt Williams

A Hybrid Fission/Fusion Reactor Could be the Best way to get Through the ice on Europa

This reprocessed colour view of Jupiter’s moon Europa was made from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

In the coming years, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will send two robotic missions to explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. These are none other than NASA’s Europa Clipper and the ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), which will launch in 2024, and 2023 (respectively). Once they arrive by the 2030s, they will study Europa’s surface with a series of flybys to determine if its interior ocean could support life. These will be the first astrobiology missions to an icy moon in the outer Solar System, collectively known as “Ocean Worlds.”

One of the many challenges for these missions is how to mine through the thick icy crusts and obtain samples from the interior ocean for analysis. According to a proposal by Dr. Theresa Benyo (a physicist and the principal investigator of the lattice confinement fusion project at NASA’s Glenn Research Center), a possible solution is to use a special reactor that relies on fission and fusion reactions. This proposal was selected for Phase I development by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which includes a $12,500 grant.

December 21, 2022December 21, 2022 by Evan Gough

Comet Impacts Could Have Brought the Raw Ingredients for Life to Europa’s Ocean

An artist's concept of a comet or asteroid impact on Jupiter's moon Europa. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Jupiter is the most-visited planet in the Solar System, thanks largely to NASA. It all started with Pioneer 10 and 11, followed by Voyager 1 and 2. Those were all flyby missions, and it wasn’t until 1996 that the Galileo spacecraft became the first to orbit the gas giant and even send a probe into its atmosphere. Then in 2016, the Juno spacecraft entered orbit around Jupiter and is still there today.

All of these missions were focused on Jupiter, but along the way, they gave us tantalizing hints of the icy moon Europa. The most impactful thing we’ve learned is that Europa, though frozen on the surface, holds an ocean under all that ice. And that warm, salty ocean might contain more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined.

Might it hold life?

November 25, 2022November 25, 2022 by Evan Gough

If We’re Going to Get Under the Ice on Europa, How Will We Send a Signal Back to the Surface?

Artist’s rendering of the Europa “tunnelbot.” (Credit: Alexander Pawlusik, LERCIP Internship Program NASA Glenn Research Center)

If we send some type of nuclear-powered tunnelbot to Europa to seek life under its icy shield, how will we know what it finds? How can a probe immersed in water under all that ice communicate with Earth? We only have hints about the nature of that ice, what layers it has and what pockets of water it might hold.

All we know is that it’s tens of kilometres thick and as hard as granite.

November 7, 2022November 7, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Hydrothermal Vents Under the Arctic Ice are Perfect Places to Practice Exploring Europa

This illustration of Europa (foreground), Jupiter (right) and Io (middle) is an artist's concept showing possible oceanic volcanoes under its icy surface. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Someday on Europa, there’ll be a robotic explorer diving beneath its icy surface to find volcanoes. Yes, even though it’s an ice world, Europa shows signs of internal activity. Planetary scientists think volcanic features, similar to hydrothermal vents here on Earth, exist on Europa’s ocean floor. But, how to understand them?

October 14, 2022October 14, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

New Views of Ganymede and Europa From Earth’s Most Powerful Telescope

Scouting mission locations in the outer solar system is complicated. It is difficult to know what you find before you get there with a probe, and once you’re already there, changing trajectories to look at the most exciting parts of the system is difficult. A much better option would be to map out the system in detail before the probe arrives. That is precisely what a team at the University of Leicester is doing in the expectation of the arrival of the JUICE and Europa Clipper probes to the Jupiter system.

October 12, 2022October 12, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

If There are Shallow Lakes Under the Ice on Europa, Clipper Will Find Them

“All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landings there.” That was the ominous message sent to Earth in the movie “2010” when Jupiter was about to transform to become a star. Thanks to that transformation, Europa would become a life-bearing world. The aliens didn’t want Earthlings messing that up. That was in the movie.

October 6, 2022October 6, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Here are the High-Resolution Images of Europa Captured by Juno During its Recent Flyby

It’s been over twenty-two years since we’ve been able to see Jupiter’s enticing moon Europa close-up. But now the Juno spacecraft has made its closest pass of Europa, sending back some amazing pictures of the icy mini-world, which likely has an ocean that contains more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined.

Observations from the spacecraft’s 45^th orbit around Jupiter brought it close enough to give us some of the best views of Europa that we’ve ever had.

August 27, 2022August 27, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

This is What a Robotic Explorer Might See When it Reaches Europa’s Oceans

Mounds of snow-like ice under an ice shelf. ©Helen Glazer, 2015 from the project Walking in Antarctica.

For decades, evidence has been mounting that beneath the icy crust of Jupiter’s moon Europa, a vast ocean exists that could possibly host microbial life. As scientists prepare to send the Europa Clipper mission to orbit the Jupiter system, they are trying to learn more about the subsurface ocean and the ice that encompasses the moon.

One way to study Europa is to look at similar environments here on Earth. Scientists say that conditions found under Earth’s Antarctic ice shelf provides an analog to Europa’s subsurface ocean and can help them determine how the moon’s ice shell accretes and grows.

A new study published in the journal Astrobiology looked at a unique phenomenon in the Antarctic ocean called underwater snow. This is where ice floats upwards onto the bottom of the ice shelf and attaches in fluffy-looking mounds. This helps to replenish the ice shelf. The study infers that the same phenomenon is likely true for Jupiter’s moon, and may play a role in building and replenishing its exterior ice shell.

August 7, 2022August 8, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Will Europa finally answer, ‘Are we alone?’

While NASA’s much-lauded Space Launch System stands ready for its maiden flight later this month with the goal of sending astronauts back to the Moon in the next few years, our gazes once again turn to the stars as we continue to ask the question that has plagued humankind since time immemorial: Are we alone? While there are several solar system locales that we can choose from to conduct our search for life beyond Earth, to include Mars and Saturn’s moons, Titan and Enceladus, one planetary body orbiting the largest planet in the solar system has peaked the interest of scientists since the 1970s.

July 11, 2022July 11, 2022 by Evan Gough

A Swarm of Swimming Robots to Search for Life Under the Ice on Europa

An artist’s interpretation of liquid water on the surface of the Europa pooling beneath chaos terrain. Credit: : NASA/JPL-Caltech

When Galileo pointed his telescope at Jupiter 400 years ago, he saw three blobs of light around the giant planet, which he at first thought were fixed stars. He kept looking, and eventually, he spotted a fourth blob and noticed the blobs were moving. Galileo’s discovery of objects orbiting something other than Earth—which we call the Galilean moons in his honour—struck a blow to the Ptolemaic (geocentric) worldview of the time.

Galileo couldn’t have foreseen the age of space exploration that we’re living in now. Fast forward 400 years, and here we are. We know the Earth doesn’t occupy any central point. We’ve discovered thousands of other planets, and many of them will have their own moons. Galileo would be amazed at this.

What would he think about robotic missions to explore one of the blobs of light he spotted?