NORTON – A geology professor from Massachusetts is playing a key role at NASA $5.2 billion Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter starting Monday.
The spacecraft launched by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center, it will take five and a half years to fly 3.5 billion kilometers to Europewhere it will study the moon to determine whether it has the necessary conditions to support life.
Europa Clipper mission to explore the surface of Jupiter’s moon
Wheaton College professor Geoffrey Collins has been working on the mission for more than a decade. The planetary geologist is part of the camera team that will give scientists a detailed view of the moon’s surface. The state-of-the-art narrow and wide-angle cameras will be able to see objects the size of a car on Europe’s surface.
NASA says there is scientific evidence that Europa currently has the ingredients for life. Europa is covered in ice, but previous studies have suggested that there is a vast saltwater ocean beneath the surface.
“Crown Jewel of the Ocean Worlds”
“Life as we know it requires liquid water, and Europa is the crown jewel of our solar system’s ocean worlds,” Collins said in a statement shared by Wheaton. “With an ocean larger than all of Earth’s oceans combined, in contact with a rocky seafloor, beneath a relatively thin layer of fresh and young-looking ice, Europa is covered in bizarre surface features that we don’t understand.”
Wheaton College
Collins said 15 Wheaton students helped figure out how plate tectonics works on Europa, which could play a role in making the moon’s ocean suitable for life. He hopes that the Europa Clipper will be a big step in the hunt for life in the universe.
“By the end of the mission, we should know where the promising places are that we need to explore further in our search for life,” Collins said.
