Here you will find everything that the Tech Europa Clipper will use to hunt for his life

Europa is slightly smaller than Earth's moon and is one of the most fascinating and mysterious objects in the solar system. The crust of Europa, one of Jupiter's four Galilean moons, is a largely crater-free shell of ice ranging from ten to more than a hundred kilometers thick. The ice, streaked and fractured and formed by unique processes, hides beneath it a suspected ocean of uncertain depths and inexplicable mysteries.

Europa is also surrounded by Jupiter's relentless radiation belts. Exploring the mysteries of the Moon – whose existence has been hinted at by brief visits by the two Voyager probes as well as Galileo and Juno – therefore requires a certain level of ingenuity and resilience. NASA's $5 billion Europa Clipper mission is now underway to address these challenges and answer one of astrobiology's most profound questions: Does Europa have the potential to host life?

The spacecraft launched on Oct. 14, after a brief delay due to Hurricane Milton, some concerns about the spacecraft's transistors failing at lower-than-expected radiation doses, and a decade-long battle for political and financial support. The space probe will reach Europe, around 700 million kilometers away, in 2030. Clipper will not orbit Europe, but will fly by the moon 49 times – more if the hardware holds up and the mission is extended – flying in every three weeks for approaches at a distance of up to 25 kilometers above the surface, then heading back out again the intense, electronics-destroying radiation belts to extend the mission.

Clipper is packed with a suite of nine instruments – imagers, spectrometers, magnetometers and radar – aimed at the key question of Europe's habitability. Together, these instruments will provide a multi-dimensional view of this icy jewel and, most importantly, how it works. Although they cannot detect life beneath the ice, the payloads will work together to determine whether or not life could develop there and elsewhere in the solar system.

Surface Dust Analyzer (SUDA)

Europa's lack of an atmosphere causes micrometeorites to impact directly into the lunar surface. These small collisions throw dust into space. SUDA, a spectrometer, will collect these ejecta particles and, as these particles pass through metal grids, determine the speed and trajectory of the dust, as well as its mass and composition.

In this way, SUDA will give researchers the composition of the ice and salts on Europa's surface, as well as clues about what lies beneath. Together with magnetic field measurements, this will help determine the depth of the ocean and the minerals present on its floor.

Furthermore, SUDA's sensitivity will provide far greater insight into what might be happening on Europa and whether it is habitable.

“SUDA shines when it comes to identifying tiny traces of organic matter in ice,” says Sascha Kempf, SUDA’s principal investigator and planetary scientist at the University of Colorado-Boulder. It is capable of measuring organic molecules at the parts per million level. SUDA's sensitivity makes it possible to detect ratios of, for example, amino acids and determine whether this indicates a non-biological process or perhaps that an organism is producing healthy amino acids.

Mass Spectrometer for Planetary Exploration/Europe (MASPEX)

Like SUDA, MASPEX is a spectrometer, but designed to analyze the thin exosphere of gases around Europa and its chemical environment, searching with unprecedented resolution for elements necessary for life as we know it. MASPEX would also be able to analyze material entering space from suspected Europa water plumes, uncover signs of active geological processes, or even detect potential biosignatures.

Europe Clipper Magnetometer (ECM)

ECM has an 8.5 meter long boom that detects and analyzes all induced magnetic fields created by the interaction between Jupiter's magnetic field and Europa's subsurface ocean – if it is salty and produces electrical currents. The aim of ECM is to gain insights into the depth, salinity and extent of the ocean beneath the ice and to find out whether the ocean interacts with the ice crust: a process that is probably necessary to create a habitable environment.

Plasma Magnetic Probing Instrument (PIMS)

PIMS is designed to measure the density and behavior of charged particles in Europe's ionosphere and the surrounding plasma environment. Combined with magnetometer data from ECM, measurements from PIMS will help determine how Europa's subsurface ocean interacts with Jupiter's magnetic field. The aim of the PIMS is to determine the depth and conductivity of the European Ocean as well as the thickness of the ice shell.

Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Surface (REASON)

REASON's antennas will send signals to the surface and capture the echoes with giant booms half the size of a basketball court that will be deployed after launch. The reflected signals will allow the team to build a picture of Europa's subsurface, determine the depth of the ice and the start of the theoretical ocean and any lakes in between, and help study Europa's topography and composition.

“Planetary science was an XY science,” says Don Blankenship, research professor at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and REASON principal investigator, referring to a two-dimensional coordinate system. “We bring the vertical. We bring the subsurface into planetary science.”

The payload will also help find evidence of the processes of exchange between the ice and the underlying ocean, as well as the likelihood of chemistry that could support life.

“You hopefully have reducing agents down in the ocean and then oxidizers at the surface. The organizing principle must be exchange. How does the surface get into the sea? And how does the sea get into the icy shell? And that’s why the radar is so important,” says Blankenship.

Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europe (MISE)

MISE will analyze infrared light reflected from Europa and measure how different materials absorb and reflect sunlight at specific wavelengths, mapping water ice, salts, organics and minerals on the surface. Materials found near cracks and fractures will shed light on how material can be exchanged between the surface and the turbulent ocean beneath the surface.

Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph (Europe UVS)

Europa-UVS will collect ultraviolet light to study Europa's surface and exosphere, searching for molecules of hydrogen, oxygen, hydroxide and carbon dioxide. It will also look for evidence that clouds are ejecting material into space.

Europe Thermal Emission Imaging System (E-THEMIS)

E-THEMIS will detect infrared wavelengths in fine spatial detail to map Europe's surface temperatures, provide insights into night and day dynamics, identify potential subsurface heat sources and indicators of geological activity and even bursts of clouds or shifts in the ice crust.

Europe Imaging System (EIS)

EIS consists of a wide-angle and a narrow-angle camera, each with an eight-megapixel sensor that covers the near-infrared, optical and a small part of the ultraviolet frequencies. It will map the surface of Europa by capturing stereoscopic images at 100 meters per pixel, providing new views and revealing new terrain and features such as ridges, cracks and potentially active regions in unprecedented resolution.

“Given Europe's unique geology, we want to really understand the nature of the ice shell and the geological processes that occur within that ice shell,” says Elizabeth “Zibi” Turtle, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and principal investigator of the EIS.

REASON and EIS are combined to provide a data set that enables a three-dimensional understanding of the ice shell with surface topography and subsurface imaging.

ICE will also look for plumes of water emerging from the surface. Mapping the boundary between day and night on Europa could reveal clouds ejected from the night side but catching sunlight high above the surface – similar to how clouds from rocket launches shortly after sunset cause “jellyfish” phenomena to viewers on Earth observe. “We conducted a flag search campaign at Jupiter throughout the tour,” Turtle says.

In addition to creating a global and subterranean view of Europe, there are areas of particular interest. These include young, so-called chaos terrain regions of Europe, which could be signs of a turbulent interior, and dark, irregular structures known as macula.

“I think it will be extremely informative and give us a spectacular, multi-dimensional and excellent picture of Europe and how it works,” says Turtle.

The emphasis is on habitability, partly because the search for life is not an easily defined task. Given that the icy moon's ocean is somewhat isolated from the outside, there is a possibility that it could have promoted a possible second formation within the solar system.

At the same time, if researchers are lucky, SUDA or MASPEX could detect lifelike signatures. These could detect amino and fatty acid patterns that are characteristic of organic material. “I'm not saying we hope to observe bacteria, but if there were one in such a particle, we could know about it,” says Kempf, SUDA's principal investigator. Such a discovery would be nothing short of historic and would lay the foundation for a follow-up landing mission.

Europa Clipper is scheduled to reach the Jupiter system in April 2030 via flybys of Mars and Earth. Then begins a whole new chapter in the search for life elsewhere in the solar system, illuminating the intrigues of Europa but also providing a platform for understanding other icy moons such as Enceladus, Ganymede and Triton.