Europa Clipper on a mission to probe an alien water world

The discovery of Jupiter’s four largest moons Ganymede, Callisto, Io and Europa - first sighted by Italian astronomer Gailleo Galilie through a homemade telescope in 1610 - triggered a fundamental rethink in our understanding of the universe. Whilst existing models of the solar system placed the Earth at the centre, Galileo’s observation of moons orbiting Jupiter provided strong evidence that this so-called geocentric model was wrong and marked a key moment in the development of modern astronomy. 

Now, more than four hundred years later, Europa - one of the most promising candidates for life elsewhere in our solar system - is once-again poised to reshape our understanding of the universe, thanks to the arrival later this decade of an advanced spacecraft that will begin to probe and uncover the ice-covered moon’s secrets. 

Thanks to the Galileo mission of the 1990s, scientists have already found strong indicators that Europa may have many of the conditions required to support life: including evidence of a vast sub-surface saltwater ocean as well as organic compounds and energy sources. But NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will be the first to study the moon in detail and determine whether it is indeed habitable. If successful, the search for life on Europa and elsewhere in the solar system will enter an exciting new phase.