NASA and ESA will hold a joint landing on a moon of Jupiter
Source:
Recent discoveries in space at the same time simplified the search for life beyond Earth, and at the same time its complicated. The more we find exoplanets and their satellites, have the potential to support extraterrestrial life, the ultimately higher the probability of its detection. At the same time, the beginning of research missions to study all these potentially habitable worlds are also becoming more difficult and certainly more expensive.
The American NASA and the European space Agency (ESA) has found a very practical solution to this problem. Both agencies are going to pool their resources and carry out joint space mission. The goal is Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, and also one of the best candidates for the search for extraterrestrial life.
The Proposal, called the Joint Europa Mission ("Joint mission to Europe", JEM), was announced on Sunday in Vienna, at the annual meeting of the European Union of Earth Sciences.
"We believe that the study of Europe and the search for her life signs are very important, so we decided that it should be an international project," — commented Michel Blanc from the research Institute of astrophysics and planetology in Toulouse.
"His key objective will be to landing on the moon's surface to search for possible biosignature", — he added.
The Assumption of a probable existence of life on Europa was intensified when researchers found that the satellite has a giant ocean under its thick icy crust. The discovery led scientists to increase their attention to Europe and to resume conducting observations of water geysers spewing from cracks in its surface. According to astronomers, in Europe can contain two times more water than the Earth, so to study that. In addition, recent data indicate that Europa's ocean may have more in common with earth's oceans than previously thought.
The Project is JEM going to start by the mid-2020s. the Considered mission time of 6.5 years. The first five of them will have to spend on the flight to Jupiter, after which it will take another few days for the orbit of Europe. For the achievement thereof on the surface of the satellite will be sent to the lander, which for 35 subsequent days will search and scan samples for the presence of traces of life. At the same time the Orbiter will be for three months to carry out various scientific measurements to find out the basic composition and structure of Europe and will focus on the study of the composition of its under-ice ocean. Upon completion of the mission, the Orbiter are likely to "drop" on Europe. At this point, the probe will collect and send back data about the atmosphere of the satellite.
Despite the fact that NASA and ESA have in stock their own research projects in Europe and other icy satellites of the Solar system, the joint mission will provide unique benefits for both space agencies. The pooling of efforts and resources simplify the task of solving important issues. One such issue, for example, is associated with the intense radiation of Jupiter. You must also make sure that the "biosphere" in Europe, if it exists at all, will not be disturbed by living organisms from Earth.
"on both sides there is a high level of enthusiasm. At the moment deals with the question of the budget of this space mission," — commented on Jakob van Zyl, Director for Solar system exploration NASA JPL.
Europe may be only the first joint project of deep space exploration. The same Jupiter has at least a few interesting satellites. Saturn and its moons can also be seen as potential sites for collaborative research in the future.
Recommended
Can genes create the perfect diet for you?
Diet on genotype can be a way out for many, but it still has a lot of questions Don't know what to do to lose weight? DNA tests promise to help you with this. They will be able to develop the most individual diet, because for this they will use the m...
How many extraterrestrial civilizations can exist nearby?
If aliens exist, why don't we "hear" them? In the 12th episode of Cosmos, which aired on December 14, 1980, co-author and host Carl Sagan introduced viewers to the same equation of astronomer Frank Drake. Using it, he calculated the potential number ...
Why does the most poisonous plant in the world cause severe pain?
The pain caused to humans by the Gimpi-gympie plant can drive him crazy Many people consider Australia a very dangerous place full of poisonous creatures. And this is a perfectly correct idea, because this continent literally wants to kill everyone w...
Related News
Chinese engineers proposed to build an underwater Hyperloop
Preliminary calculations conducted by the Institute of railway transport of China, showed that the construction of the submarine branch of the vacuum tunnel by the principle Hyperloop — quite feasible for the Chinese experts...
The Chinese government founded the centre for development of commercial space technologies
China continues to develop its space industry, steadily catching up with other countries in different directions. Slowly but surely moving to create its own space station, the core of which will be launched next year, is developin...
Scientists have created an artificial womb for premature babies
the problem of supporting the life and the full development of premature babies is very relevant today. Is considered a premature baby, born at 37-38 weeks earlier and having a body weight less than 2.5 kg. Born every year prematu...
10 cases, when the planet was on the brink of Apocalypse
Until mankind came out unscathed. Given how much we've been lucky so far, it becomes strange why we haven't found life elsewhere in the Universe. However, there were many cases when the human race was almost at the brink of doomsd...
The cells of the immune system help in the contraction of the heart muscle
it would Seem that anatomy and physiology — science, which are open to virtually all. Nevertheless scientists from around the world continue to make amazing discoveries. For example, recently a group of researchers from Mass...
Can genes be responsible for our food preferences?
has Long been known that all of our characteristics, both good and bad (like disease), developing due to genetically information. But until now it was unclear whether genetics influences on our habits, including eating behavior. W...
Physicists say they have found a way to define a naked singularity
Black holes. Insanely dense cosmic objects with such powerful gravity that it bends space-time, and our current laws of physics, eventually creating a singularity. Fortunately, the universe protects us from these objects, creating...
Most jizneopisanie exoplanets are likely to be water worlds
More than 70 percent of our planet's surface is covered by water. To some this may seem excessive, but a new study makes a supposition that our world is in this respect a truly unique and unique as you would think. The fact that t...
China began testing a competitor's Airbus A320 aircraft of its own production
the Comac C919 Aircraft is developed by Chinese company, Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China in 2009. This uzkofjuzeljazhnyh the aircraft is 168 seats, but in the future engineers plan to develop other models based on it, wit...
Suddenly: why lions-cannibals prefer people food?
In 1898 the attempt of the British to build a railway bridge across the gorge in Tsavo, Kenya, ended in a fiasco when a pair of lions began to catch working one… eat them. Obviously, workers who have not eaten, was not happy...
Scientists are faced with an unknown atmospheric phenomenon
Meet "Steve" recently detected an unknown atmospheric phenomenon. It is so unusual, that still has no official scientific explanation. Here, incidentally, is apparently an unusual name. Thanks to the continuous work conducted over...
Over the past 10 years, due to the method of so-called deep learning, we have the best artificial intelligence system — for example, speech recognizers on smartphones or the latest automatic translator Google. Deep learning, in fa...
Scientists found out why the AI might be racist and sexist
the Failed experiment of Microsoft, with its AI algorithm Tay (Tay), who within 24 hours after the beginning of interaction with people from Twitter has turned into a hardened racist, showed that the newly emerging AI systems can ...
SETI: aliens don't make contact, but we'll still find
Some researchers from the Institute for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) believe that the best way of detecting aliens is scanning the cosmos and the search for laser beams. In one of the last major studies of t...
Astronomers have found another "perfect" exoplanet
nowadays, astronomers are beginning to find potentially habitable exoplanets, but the latest find could be the most intriguing. The planet is called LHS 1140b, it is a bit more Land and is located approximately 40 light years from...
LHCb found new hints on possible deviations from the Standard model
the LHCb Experiment, which operates in the framework of the Large hadron Collider at CERN, showed a curious anomaly in the decay of certain particles. If this information is confirmed we will receive new physical phenomena not pre...
Physicists have created a "negative mass"
Physics of the University of Washington have created a fluid with negative mass. Push it, and unlike all the physical objects in the world that we know, it will not accelerate in the direction of the push. It will accelerate in th...
Supermassive black holes in the Universe may be two times larger than previously thought
a New discovery by astronomers has the potential to double the number of supermassive black holes in the Universe. Science for a long time it was thought that supermassive black holes usually exist only in the centers of large gal...
Scientists have discovered a terrifying new species of molluscs
the Discovery of the animals is always very interesting and important scientific event. Scientists believe that in the future they will find many incredible surprises that nature at this day concealed from mankind. To take at leas...
Create a drug that causes dangerous bacteria to destroy their own DNA
the Sustainability of some species of pathogenic bacteria to existing antibiotics every year. Scientists from different countries trying to come up with universal medicine to which the bacteria would not get used so quickly, but s...
Comments (0)
This article has no comment, be the first!