--- title: NASA: 'All Systems Go' for Europa Mission description: “Today we’re taking an exciting step from concept to mission, in our quest to find signs of life beyond Earth." canonical: https://time.com/3928166/nasa-europa-moon/ author: Dan Kedmey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-19T15:22:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T09:08:36.635Z article:section: Science og:title: See Why NASA Is Dying to Visit Jupiter's Moon Europa og:description: "The time has come to seek answers" og:url: https://time.com/3928166/nasa-europa-moon/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7aab6c95b0da15a4/6988555f0b72e3809e6e48fb/gettyimages-50579806.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3072 og:image:height: 1728 og:image:alt: Jupiter's moon Europa, from 150,000 mi., og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See Why NASA Is Dying to Visit Jupiter's Moon Europa twitter:description: "The time has come to seek answers" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7aab6c95b0da15a4/6988555f0b72e3809e6e48fb/gettyimages-50579806.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # See Why NASA Is Dying to Visit Jupiter's Moon Europa > Sponsored content. 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Europa Mission_  by [Dan Kedmey](https://time.com/author/dan-kedmey/)  ## Dan Kedmey Jun 19, 2015 3:22 PM UTC  by [Dan Kedmey](https://time.com/author/dan-kedmey/)  ## Dan Kedmey Jun 19, 2015 3:22 PM UTC A new mission to see if water or life exists beneath the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa has moved from concept to development, NASA announced this week. “Observations of Europa have provided us with tantalizing clues over the last two decades, and the time has come to seek answers to one of humanity’s most profound questions,” John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, [said](http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/all-systems-go-for-nasas-mission-to-jupiter-moon-europa) in a public statement. An observational spacecraft is slated to launch by the late 2020’s. After several years, the craft will enter Jupiter’s orbit, offering upwards of 45 opportunities to fly within shutter range of Europa, collecting images of the planet’s surface and possibly “tasting” spumes from massive geysers erupting into space. However, the craft won’t actually land on the Europa’s surface. The spacecraft will have to take only a glancing look, given the intense levels of radiation. “Any mission that goes in the vicinity of Europa gets cooked pretty quickly,” says Europa mission project scientist Robert Pappalardo. Europa first captivated NASA scientists in the late 1990’s, when the Hubble telescope returned images of the planet’s icy crust. Scientists theorized that an ocean might lay beneath the crust, holding twice as much water as large as all of Earth’s oceans combined. NASA hopes to gain a deep enough understanding of the water’s composition to see if it contains signs of life or life-sustaining nutrients. “That would mean the origin of life must be pretty easy throughout the galaxy and beyond,” Pappalardo says. ### PHOTOS: 20 Breathtaking Images of Earth From Space  Aleppo, Syria, May 26, 2013 – The Citadel of Aleppo – medieval fortified palace DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Belfast, Northern Ireland, Nov. 3, 2013 – “Wish,” a large-scale art work DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Utah, USA, April 22, 2013 – Colorado River DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Cuanza River, Angola, April 28, 2013 – Cambambe Dam DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Doha, Qatar, March 4, 2013 – Artificial island spanning nearly four million sq meters. DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Dunalley, Australia, Jan. 6, 2013 – fires, false color image (red = healthy vegetation) DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Australia, April 22, 2013 – Great Barrier Reef DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Gwadar coast, Pakistan Sept. 29, 2013 – new island created by earthquake in Pakistan DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Croatia, Feb. 16, 2013 – Galešnjak (Island of Love) DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Hong Kong, China May 9, 2013 – giant rubber duck DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Madang Province, Papua New Guinea, March 22, 2013 – Manam Volcano DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Namib Desert, Namibia, May 13, 2013 – Sossusvlie area DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Naples, Italy, Feb. 19 2013 – Mount Vesuvius DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Niger, Feb. 13, 2013 – Arlit Uranium Mine DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Schooner Cays, Bahamas, May 26, 2013 DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Sochi, Russia, March 17, 2013 – Site of 2014 winter Olympics DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Near the city of Sur, Oman, Feb. 13, 2013 – massive “green tide” DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Valencia, Spain, July 19, 2013 – Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia and Gulliver Park with an enormous fiberglass model of Lemuel Gulliver trapped DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Versailles, France, Aug. 20, 2013 – Palace of Versailles DigitalGlobe—Getty Images  Xi'an, China, Sept. 24, 2013 – Shiyuan Park DigitalGlobe—Getty Images ## Transcript Europa is the most likely place to find life in our solar system today because we think there's a liquid water ocean beneath its surface. And we know that on Earth, everywhere that there is water we find life. So could Europa have the ingredient Evidence to support life. We might be actually looking at a body that is presently alive, presently active, and presently undergoing its geology. There is too much evidence lying around on the surface, the red stuff, that suggests that something's going on. Is that an environment that is habitable for any sort of life form? By golly, we really have got to go back and figure that out. [ MUSIC ] We have designed the Europa mission To take a spacecraft and then set the instruments all the way from planet Earth to Jupiter. Previous mission concepts were for a spacecraft that would orbit Europa. But Europa is bathed in radiation from Jupiter. Any mission that goes in the vicinity of Europa is corked pretty quickly. Instead we were looking at a mission that would orbit Jupiter. Make close flybys of Europa, and then zip out of the high radiation region. Kind of like, when I was a kid we had the sprinklers, and we didn't wanna be too close to the sprinkler head. So we would run in and get a little water, and then run back out again. This allows us to have a mission that's many years long, and to collect and transmit lots and lots of data. [ INAUDIBLE ] As Europa orbits Jupiter, it flexes. And we could measure the gravitational change of Europa by encountering Europa at different points in its orbit. On a typical fly by We would turn on our remote sensing instruments. We would image the surface. We would interrogate the surface with spectroscopy and we would do the same thing on the way out and we would essentially rinse and repeat and do this many many times until we understand Europa globally. [ MUSIC ] Images from the Hubbell space telescope tells us that Europa might be erupting plumes of water high into space. If that's true, then we could fly through those plumes with a space craft and literally taste it to understand the composition of Europa's interior. If if does have the ability to harbor life, how does that work exactly? Will have enough instrumentation to really pinpoint exactly how the mechanisms would work for replenishing the nutrients in a subsurface ocean. Europa is so important because we wanna understand, are we alone in the cosmos? If there is life in Europa, it almost certainly was completely independent From the origin of life on Earth. That would mean the origin of life must be pretty easy throughout the galaxy and beyond. 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