Solar-powered spacecraft set to scour Europa for signs of alien life: Nasa reveals mission
Channel: Aliens insider
Date: 2015-06-17

Solar-powered spacecraft set to scour Europa for signs of alien life: Nasa reveals mission to blast off in 2020s
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3098098/Solar-powered-spacecraft-set-scour-Europa-signs-alien-life-Nasa-reveals-30m-mission-blast-2020s.html


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Nasa has revealed plans to send a solar powered plane to Europa to look for signs of life under its oceans.

It has revealed nine instruments will fly on a solar aircraft as part of the estimated $1 billion (£650 million) mission, set to blast off in the 2020s.

They will include an ice penetrating radar, cameras and spectrometers to produce high-resolution images of Europa's surface and determine its composition.

Nasa's Galileo mission yielded strong evidence that Europa, about the size of Earth's moon, has an ocean beneath a frozen crust of unknown thickness. 

If proven to exist, this global ocean could have more than twice as much water as Earth. 

With abundant salt water, a rocky sea floor, and the energy and chemistry provided by tidal heating, Europa could be the best place in the solar system to look for present day life beyond our home planet.