The perennial search for alien life takes another turn as NASA guns for moons instead of various exoplanets in space to know if it can find one.
When NASA will launch the 'Europa Clipper' mission in 2020s, its primary mission is to take a closer look to the interior icy shell of Jupiter's moon called Europa if life thrives in it.
"During each orbit, the spacecraft spends only a short time within the challenging radiation environment near Europa. It speeds past, gathers a huge amount of science data, then sails on out of there," Robert Pappalardo, Europa Clipper project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said.
Why Europa
The icy-crusted Europa, one of the 67 satellites of Jupiter, has been an apple of the eye for scientists for years.
Its distance of 800 million kilometers (500 million miles) from the sun does not make it a potential place where alien life might be present. Underneath its thick icy surface, however, lies a large amount of saltwater similar to Earth's which makes the Galilean moon fascinating to scientists.
Scientists have found out that the alien ocean in that icy moon has all the elements for life to exist: hydrogen and oxygen.
In studying the alien ocean, the researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed a system that compared Europa's capacity to produce hydrogen and oxygen similar to that of the Earth.
Their findings confirmed what they thought all the while.
"The cycling of oxygen and hydrogen in Europa's ocean will be a major driver for Europa's ocean chemistry and any life there, just as it is on Earth," lead researcher Steve Vance said.
The Missing Link
With hydrogen and oxygen present in Europa's alien ocean, the remaining piece of the puzzle to be discovered is life.
"Whether or not life and biological processes complete the circuit is part of what motivates our exploration of Europa," Kevin Hand, one of the JPL researchers, said.
Probe Necessary
Scientists are convinced that a thorough flyby mission to the icy moon of Jupiter can help solve the puzzle if it is really habitable or even to know if the much-discussed alien ocean actually exists.
Europa Clipper with its projected frequent flybys over the icy surface could scan what lies beneath the thick ice surface of Europa.
Lander Mission
NASA is mulling to attach a lander mission to the scheduled flyby mission in 2020s to explore Europa right on its surface.
This lander, which was ordered by Congress in 2015, will be equipped with an organic compositional analyzer, a microscope system, and a vibrational spectrometer.
NASA has not yet finalized how this lander mission will work.
