Chris Davies - Apr 1, 2021, 2:24pm CDT
NASA has big hopes for Jupiter’s moon Europa, and the American space agency has just dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s on the spacecraft that will fly out there to see if it can actually support life. Europa Clipper faces a long journey, with Jupiter orbiting the Sun at a far more distant elliptical path than Earth, but what it could find there may make that all worthwhile.
That’s because, unlike what we’ve seen of other planets and moons in the solar system, Europa shows signs of being highly conducive to supporting life. There’s twice as much liquid water there than on Earth, for example, for the most part as a huge, salty ocean. It’s warmed by tidal heating, and expected to be stocked with minerals from the moon’s rocky build.