What’s Special About Europa? Jupiter’s Moon Where NASA Is Sending Its New Mission To

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, the first dedicated mission to study an ocean world beyond Earth, aims to investigate if Jupiter’s ice-covered moon, Europa, could support life.

An artist’s concept of NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft.

Source : NASA

Europa Clipper Mission: NASA is preparing to launch one of its most ambitious space missions to date: the Europa Clipper. Set to travel nearly 1.8 billion miles from Earth, the spacecraft will explore Europa, an icy moon orbiting Jupiter, which has long fascinated scientists with the possibility that it could harbour conditions suitable for life. The mission, which is scheduled to launch on October 10, marks NASA’s first dedicated effort to study this distant moon in detail.

Europa: A Search For Life Beyond Earth

The intrigue surrounding Europa stems from strong evidence suggesting that beneath its frozen surface lies a vast ocean, possibly containing more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. This tantalising possibility raises the question: Could life exist in this alien ocean?

The Europa Clipper mission won’t be a search for life directly, but it will gather crucial data to assess whether the environment beneath the ice could support life. The spacecraft is equipped with advanced instruments designed to study Europa’s ice shell, ocean, and geological features. Over the course of its mission, it will perform 49 close flybys of Europa, gathering measurements from as low as 16 miles above its surface.

What Makes Europa Special?

Europa is classified as an "ocean world" because, despite its icy exterior, it is believed to harbour a global ocean of liquid water beneath. The water, along with a mix of organic compounds and energy sources from the moon’s surface and seafloor, presents the key elements needed for life as we know it. This combination, scientists believe, has remained stable for billions of years, making Europa one of the most promising places in the solar system to explore for habitable conditions.

While Europa is not alone in this category — Saturn's moons Enceladus and Titan are also thought to have subsurface oceans — Europa has been the subject of curiosity over decades, and scientists believe it offers well-defined questions to explore in the search for extraterrestrial life.

With an equatorial diameter of 1,940 miles (3,100 km), Europa is approximately 90 percent the size of Earth's Moon, according to NASA.

Europa was first observed in 1610 by Galileo Galilei. German astronomer Simon Marius is also often credited with the discovery because he also claimed to have spotted Jupiter's moons around the same time. The moon was named after Europa, a figure from Phoenician mythology who was the mother of King Minos of Crete and the object of affection of Zeus, the Greek counterpart of the Roman god Jupiter.

What Will NASA Mission Europa Clipper Do?

The Europa Clipper’s primary goal is to determine whether any areas below the moon’s surface could support life. The spacecraft will gather detailed information about the ice shell’s thickness, how the ocean interacts with the surface, and what Europa’s overall composition reveals about its habitability. Instruments on board include cameras, spectrometers, and an ice-penetrating radar, all aimed at unlocking Europa’s mysteries.

It's key science objectives include understanding the nature of the ice shell and its interaction with the ocean, investigating the ocean’s composition, and characterising Europa’s geology. The spacecraft will map the surface, study its thin atmosphere, and search for signs of recent geological activity, such as eruptions of water through the ice.

NASA believes the data collected from this mission could be a giant leap toward answering one of humanity’s oldest questions: Are we alone in the universe?