Europa tagged posts

ESA’s Juice spacecraft raced past Earth on September 28, using our planet’s gravity to dramatically reshape its path toward Jupiter without burning much fuel. The flyby changed its direction by 20 degrees and increased its speed by 3.5 km/s, while also giving scientists a rare chance to test its instruments on Earth and the Moon.

The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) made a close pass by Earth on September 28, skimming the outer reaches of the atmosphere and using our planet’s gravity to reshape its path toward Jupiter while consuming very little fuel.

The carefully planned gravity assist changed Juice’s direction by 20° relative to its previous trajectory and increased its speed by 3.5 km/s...

An international team that included Southwest Research Institute has shown how complex organic molecules (COMs), considered essential chemical precursors to life, may have become part of Jupiter’s four largest moons as they formed. The results appear in companion papers published in The Planetary Science Journal and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Together, the studies shed new light on how the ingredients for life could have reached the Jovian system.

COMs are carbon based molecules that also contain elements such as oxygen and nitrogen, which are necessary for living systems...

As NASA’s Europa Clipper embarks on its historic journey to Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, Dr. Matt Powell-Palm, a faculty member at Texas A&M University’s J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering, has unveiled groundbreaking research that could transform our understanding of icy ocean worlds across the solar system. The study published in Nature Communications, co-authored with planetary scientist Dr...

For decades, science fiction authors have imagined scenarios in which life thrives on the harsh surfaces of Mars or our moon, or in the oceans below the icy surfaces of Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa. But the study of habitability—the conditions required to support and sustain life—is not just confined to the pages of fiction. As more planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond are investigated for their potential to host conditions favorable to life, researchers are debating how to characterize habitability.

While many studies have focused on the information obtained by orbiting spacecraft or telescopes that provide snapshot views of ocean worlds and exoplanets, a new paper emphasizes the importance of investigating complex geophysical factors that can b...