Excitement Grows As The Europa Mission Gains Momentum
Liquid water is key to life and because of that, Europa may be the most likely place to find life in our solar system. There is just too much evidence we can see on the surface to ignore that possibility.
What is even more exciting is that it appears the project is gaining steam and in the recent article All Systems Go for NASA’s Mission to Jupiter Moon Europa, a date in the 2020’s is the target launch.
I included two videos in this post. The first is very short, but discusses high points on what the mission expects to accomplish from surface mapping and measuring gravitational changes, to flying through plumes of water that may be getting ejected from the moon’s surface to get a peek inside Europa itself.
The second video is more a panel of scientists discussing the mission in more detail. It isn’t quite as “film exciting” as the first video, but the graphics and mission plans are simply fascinating.
The big question is what’s under that ice crust? Hydro-thermal vents? Tidal forces that open cracks in the surface? Can life thrive there like it does at the bottom of Earth’s oceans around those vents?
Whatever the answers may be, the questions raised on this video just increase the excitment for the mission …