Episode 64 of SfS — “The Europa Clipper Mission: A Conversation with Dr. Steve Vance” — is now Live!
In this week’s episode, I had the good fortune to sit down with NASA scientist and astrobiologist Dr. Steve Vance so we could talk about NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission. This mission, which was decades in the making, will launch this coming October, sending a spacecraft to Jupiter to explore its satellite Europa. Ever since the Voyager probes flew past Jupiter and its moons in 1979, scientists have speculated that there might be an ocean beneath this moon’s icy crust.
The mission will arrive around Jupiter by 2030, where it will begin making flybys of Europa and studying its surface with an advanced suite of instruments. Among its objectives are the characterization of Europa’s surface, investigating surface plume activity, and determining the existence and chemistry of its interior ocean. Another major objective is the search for potential biosignatures, indications that this interior ocean may harbor life!
We got into all of that and a number of other things — including Europa’s depiction in Arthur C. Clarke’s famed Space Odyssey series. As Vance told me during our chat, Clarke played a role in the mission planning, and (contrary to the monoliths told humanity in his stories) we do have permission to “attempt a landing there.”
Where to Listen:
Originally published at http://storiesbywilliams.com on January 28, 2024.
