NASA has recently described what could well become man’s next big step in the search for extraterrestrial life elsewhere in our solar system. In 2016, NASA’s Planetary Science Division was instructed by the US Congress to look into the feasibility of sending a spacecraft to Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, with the aim of landing on its surface to actively search for signs of extraterrestrial. A special Science Definition Team consisting of 21 members has now submitted a report which outlines what such a mission could look like, and how it would go about actively searching for signs of life. The last time a life-searching mission took place was in the 1970s with the Viking missions that were sent to Mars.
Such a mission, which could theoretically take place as soon as 2024, would be one of the most challenging missions ever undertaken. Given the fact that Europa is roughly 554 million miles away from here, every aspect of the landing would have to be done autonomously, and that in an environment which very welcoming towards electronics. Why go there in the first place? The biggest motivation is the fact that researchers believe Europa has a vast subsurface ocean, and that this ocean is in contacts with its rocky core. In short, when it comes to searching for extraterrestrial life, Europa is a priority target.
http://newatlas.com/nasa-europa-lander/47842/
Or … better yet, see the original article source at the NASA site itself.
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