Friday, May 29, 2015
THESE 9 INSTRUMENTS WILL FIND OUT WHETHER ALIENS COULD
LIVE ON EUROPA
FIGURING OUT IF CONDITIONS ARE RIGHT FOR LIFE ON
JUPITER'S ICY MOON
At the beginning of the year, NASA got some exciting news from the Obama Administration: The space agency
is finally getting funding to send a probe to Jupiter’s moon Europa by the
mid-2020s. With a subsurface ocean suspected to be lingering underneath its icy
crust, Europa is one of the top candidates in our solar system for finding
extraterrestrial life. And NASA hopes its probe can figure out if conditions
are right for little aliens to exist.
To do that, the space agency needs the right
instruments to study the environment surrounding the icy moon. NASA’s proposed Europa Clipper
mission won’t
be landing on Europa but will be “clipping” the space rock, swooping into its
atmosphere 45 times over the course of two-and-a-half years. During these
flybys, the various instruments attached to the clipper probe will gather as
much data as possible before the probe dips back out again.
NASA hopes to answer the biggest question of all: Is
Europa habitable?
Today NASA announced just what these integral
instruments will be. According to the agency, 33 different proposals were
considered for the probe, which were ultimately narrowed down to nine. All the
instruments will work in tandem to answer looming questions about Europa: How
deep and salty is the ocean? How thick and active is the moon’s ice shell?
What’s that brown gunk we see in all the Europa pictures?
The answers to these questions, NASA says, could help
answer the biggest question of all: Is Europa habitable?
Unfortunately, none of the nine instruments are
designed to detect life directly. According to Curt Niebur, Europa program
scientist at NASA Headquarters, the scientists at NASA couldn’t decide on an
instrument that could best measure something that significant. “What became clear
is we don’t have a life detector,” said Neibur at a press conference. “We don’t
have consensus in the scientific community what we’d measure to say that this
thing you’re looking at is alive.” Some instruments do claim to detect
signatures of life, though contact with the planet is necessary.
Check out the nine instruments below and why NASA says
they deserve a ride aboard the Europa Clipper.
Interior Characterization of Europa using Magnetometry
(ICEMAG): a magnetometer designed to measure the magnetic field of Europa.
According to NASA, understanding the moon’s magnetosphere will be like taking
an MRI of the interior structure of Europa.
Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding (PIMS): This
instrument works in conjunction with ICEMAG to measure the plasma currents
surrounding Europa. This could help the space agency get a better understanding
of Europa's ocean depth, its salinity, and a heavily debated topic in the
scientific community--the thickness of the moon's ice crust.
Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE): An
infrared spectrometer that measures the spectra (those squiggly lines) on
Europa's surface. Spectra lines act like unique fingerprints, indicating the
materials that have been on Europa's surface. One particular area of interest
for NASA is figuring out what those lines of brown gunk are made of. These
brown areas are associated with the youngest areas on Europa's surface, which
means they could be material that have recently erupted up from underneath the
ice.
Europa Imaging System (EIS): NASA is hoping to get
some amazing photos of Europa's surface by equipping their probe with both a
wide and narrow angle camera. Together, they'll snap images of the moon at
164-foot resolution, getting super high-res pictures of the various ridges and
unique surface features of Europa.
Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to
Near-surface (REASON): Ice penetrating radar for looking at the structures underneath
the ice crust. This will give NASA a better idea of how structures underneath
the ice have changed through time. There is also strong evidence to support the
presence of lakes within the ice shelves, close to the crust's surface, and
this radar will help verify if they exist.
Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS): A
thermal imager for detecting heat. This instrument will find the "hot
spots" on Europa, which may indicate where the moon is most active. By hot
spots, NASA means places that are slightly higher than Europa's average
temperature of -260 degrees Fahrenheit.
Artist concept of a plume of water
vapor off the Jovian moon Europa |
MAss SPectrometer for Planetary EXploration/Europa
(MASPEX): This mass spectrometer will analyze Europa's atmosphere. The
materials found in the space above the moon will serve as a good indication of
the materials that can be found on the surface and in the subsurface ocean.
Ultraviolet Spectrograph/Europa (UVS): NASA is really
interested in the possibility of plumes living on Europa. Recently the Hubble
Space Telescope spied water vapor above one of the moon's poles, indicating the
presence of these vents. The spectrograph will use ultraviolet light to hunt
down these plumes and identify how active they are.
SUrface Dust Mass Analyzer (SUDA): The dust analyzer
will work similarly to the mass spectrometer, measuring the particles ejected
from the plumes identified by the spectrograph.
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