Europa Clipper Mission Spacecraft Notebook

Could the planet Jupiter’s ice-covered moon, Europa, harbour life just below the surface. Scientists think this is one of the strongest candidates in the Solar System, based on Hubble Space Telescope images of Europa spewing plumes of water vapour. The Galileo Jupiter Orbiter might even have flown through such a plume. NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will enter the Jovian system in the mid-2020’s and orbit both Jupiter and Europa. It will fly close to the moon to measure it with nine instruments to determine what kinds of matter Europa is ejecting.