ALIENS could be out there in our own solar system – and NASA intends to find them.
The space agency is working on a series of groundbreaking missions to discover evidence of extraterrestrial life.
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CLIPPER EUROPE
Release: October 10, 2024
First on our list is NASA’s Europa Clipper, which will place a spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter.
But its focus is actually Jupiter’s Europa – a moon roughly the same size as Earth’s.
“NASA’s Europa Clipper will conduct detailed reconnaissance of Jupiter’s moon Europa and investigate whether the icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life,” explains NASA.
With a wingspan of 30 meters, it is the largest spacecraft ever built by NASA for this type of planetary mission.
The spacecraft will be launched in 2024, but will only arrive in Europe in April 2030.
Europa has consistently been identified as a key location in our solar system for potentially harboring extraterrestrial life.
Scientists believe alien organisms may be lurking in a vast ocean hidden beneath the Moon’s icy crust.
And while it may not find direct proof of the existence of aliens, it will definitely be able to give us a much better idea about whether the Moon is capable of hosting life.
TITAN DRAGONFLY
Launch: July 2028
Next Above is the Dragonfly, a helicopter-style robotic helicopter that will be able to take off and land vertically.
Your destination is Titan, Saturn’s largest moon and possible home to alien life.
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Part of Titan’s appeal to scientists is how similar the moon once was to our own planet in its early days.
“Titan is an analogue of early Earth and may provide clues about how life may have emerged on our planet,” NASA explained.
“During its 2.7-year base mission, Dragonfly will explore diverse environments, from organic dunes to the floor of an impact crater where liquid water and complex organic materials essential to life have existed together for possibly tens of thousands of years. years.
“Their instruments will study how far prebiotic chemistry may have progressed.
Saturn’s moon Titan: the facts
Here’s everything you need to know…
- Titan is Saturn’s largest moon.
- It is an icy world whose surface is completely obscured by a hazy, golden atmosphere.
- At 2,600 miles across, Titan is the second largest moon in our solar system.
- It is larger than Earth’s moon (1,100 miles in diameter) and larger even than the planet Mercury (1,500 miles).
- Titan is the only world besides Earth that has permanent liquid bodies, including rivers, lakes and seas, on its surface.
- Like Earth, Titan’s atmosphere is composed mainly of nitrogen, plus a small amount of methane.
- It is the only other place in the Solar System known to have an Earth-like cycle of liquids raining from clouds, flowing across its surface, filling lakes and seas, and evaporating back into the sky.
- Titan is also believed to have an underground ocean of water.
- Scientists have named it as a key target in their search for alien life due to its similarity to Earth.
“They will also investigate the atmospheric and surface properties of the Moon and its subsurface oceans and liquid reservoirs.
“In addition, the instruments will look for chemical evidence of past or existing life.”
Dragonfly is expected to arrive on Titan in 2034.
It will be the first spacecraft to perform fully controlled, powered flights on any moon.
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EXOMARS ROVER
Launch: no earlier than 2028
The Rosalind Franklin ExoMars Rover is actually a European Space Agency project.
But NASA contributed resources — and helped design critical instrumental elements — to the mission.
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It’s a planned six-wheeled Mars rover that weighs about 660 pounds.
The rover is expected to carry a six-foot sampling drill and a laboratory drawer.
And it will use these tools to look for signs of past lives.
“One of the main objectives of the mission is to look for organics in samples collected by the rover’s drilling efforts,” says NASA.
How long does it take to get to Mars?
It’s not such a short trip…
- There is a huge distance between Earth and Mars, which means any trip to the red planet will take a long time.
- It’s also made more complicated by the fact that the distance constantly changes as the two planets revolve around the sun.
- The closest Earth and Mars would be is a distance of 33.9 million miles – that’s 9,800 times the distance between London and New York
- But that’s really rare: the most useful distance is the average, which is 140 million miles
- Scientists on Earth have already launched a bunch of spacecraft to (or near) Mars, so we have a rough idea of how long it takes with current technology.
- Historically, the journey lasted between 128 and 333 days – an admittedly enormous length of time for humans to remain aboard a cramped spacecraft.
“After the pure material is collected from below the Martian surface, samples of particular scientific interest will be placed in the MOMA furnaces.
“The vapor released from the heated samples will be analyzed with gas chromatography for traces of organic compounds.
“Organic compounds are chemicals that contain carbon and are not, in themselves, a sign of life.
“However, certain specific organic molecules are found in cells and, if discovered, could provide clues about the potential for life on Mars.”
Unfortunately, the mission faced significant delays.
This is because ExoMars was being jointly managed by Russia’s Roscosmos – a partnership that was terminated after the invasion of Ukraine.
A new release date is expected to be announced later this year.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
