Later this year, NASA is launching its Europa Clipper spacecraft to the icy moon of Jupiter. Its mission is only to investigate whether the moon is habitable, but now researchers have found that one of its instruments could look for direct signs of life
By Jacklin Kwan
22 March 2024
An artist’s impression of Europa Clipper near the moon it is named after
NASA
An instrument on a NASA spacecraft due to blast off to Europa later this year may be able to directly detect cellular material ejected from the icy moon of Jupiter, raising the prospects for finding life.
Europa has garnered scientific interest because researchers believe it contains a vast, saltwater ocean under its thick icy shell. It is also surrounded by an orbiting blanket of ice grains and dust, believed to be remnants of material thrown up following bombardments by meteorites.
Read more
Our hunt for alien life needs solid guidelines for clear-cut success
Advertisement
NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, due to launch in October and arrive at its destination in 2030, will fly near the moon, but won’t land on it. It will carry 10 experiments with the aim of studying Europa’s internal structure, including the chemistry of its ocean and its potential habitability for life beyond Earth.
One of these is the SUrface Dust Analyser (SUDA), which is a type of instrument known as a mass spectrometer. It will collect material ejected from the moon to reveal its chemical composition, including potential organic molecules and salts.
SUDA hasn’t been designed to look for signs of existing life on Europa, but now Frank Postberg at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, who works on the instrument, and his colleagues have shown that it could detect fragments of cellular material, potentially providing evidence of current life.