Europa Clipper
About
Europa Clipper will perform repeated flybys of Jupiter’s moon and use a suite of instruments to investigate whether habitable environments could exist. Europa is one of the Solar System’s “ocean worlds”, with a subsurface liquid water ocean beneath an icy, deformed crust. Camera and spectrometer instruments will study Europa’s surface features and composition and search for erupting plumes, and a thermal instrument will search for regions that are still warm from recent activity. Magnetometers and plasma instruments will study Jupiter’s magnetic interactions to probe the ocean, and a dual-frequency radar will map the subsurface stratigraphy and search for liquid water. Mass spectrometers will analyze the composition of Europa’s exosphere, perhaps detecting organic materials.
Faculty
Europa Clipper Faculty
Lynn Carter
Earth, Lunar Studies, Planetary Analogs, Planetary Geophysics, Planetary Surfaces, Titan & Outer Solar System
Alfred McEwen
Astrobiology, Lunar Studies, Photogrammetry, Planetary Analogs, Planetary Geophysics, Planetary Surfaces
Other Researchers
Europa Clipper Researchers
Sarah Sutton
Earth, Lunar Studies, Photogrammetry, Planetary Analogs, Planetary Surfaces, Small Bodies