Europa Clipper

Europa Clipper

    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.

    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

    Europa Clipper Researchers

    Sarah Sutton

    Earth, Lunar Studies, Photogrammetry, Planetary Analogs, Planetary Surfaces, Small Bodies