Europa Clipper: “Mars is just a slingshot”

If we still don’t find life on Mars, at least it makes a good gravitational slingshot! 🚀 NASA’s Europa Clipper is making a quick flyby at 884 km above the planet—not to sightsee, but to get a boost on its 2.9-billion-kilometer journey to Jupiter’s moon, Europa. Think of it as the opposite of a speed bump: a speed launch pad! While swinging by, mission scientists will also test the spacecraft’s radar and thermal imaging instruments. (Read more)

But Europa isn’t the only icy moon with secrets. Re-examining old Galileo spacecraft data, researchers found new evidence that Jupiter’s moon Callisto likely has a thick subsurface ocean, lurking beneath tens to hundreds of kilometers of ice. It turns out that Europa isn’t the only one hiding water under all that ice! (Read more)

And while we’re at it, Saturn’s Enceladus is keeping things mysterious too. Its famous geysers? They don’t actually shoot directly from its subsurface ocean but probably from a “mushy” zone inside its ice shell. And this mushy layer may still connect to the ocean below, meaning more places where alien microbes could be lurking. (Read more)So even if Mars’ old water didn’t cook up aliens, maybe Europa, Callisto, or Enceladus will surprise us. The search for extraterrestrial life is very much alive—even if the aliens turn out to be microscopic! 🦠👽