vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Europa-UVS | Instruments – NASA's Europa Clipper
“It’s like a digital image you take with a cell phone camera.”

“It’s much like a digital image that you get on your cell phone camera.”

- Kurt Retherford, Europa-UVS principal investigator

But unlike a cell phone, Europa-UVS sees ultraviolet light, and records more than pictures. Different elements emit and absorb specific wavelengths of light. The instrument records how bright the light is at each of those wavelengths. The resulting data contains the telltale signatures of atoms and molecules. It tells scientists exactly what material the light passed through, or reflected against.

Flight housing for the Europa-UVS (Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph) instrument in early summer 2020, as it was about to begin assembly and testing. Credit: NASA/SWRI

How We'll Use It
How We'll Use It
Europa-UVS will study the composition and structure of Europa’s atmosphere and surface. It will search near Europa for vapor plumes venting into space from the moon’s liquid water ocean or from reservoirs in its icy shell. Studying that material will be akin to dipping a test tube directly into those bodies of liquid. The instrument will also study the moon’s aurora, its own sort of northern lights.
The instrument will primarily identify relatively simple molecules, such as hydrogen (H2), oxygen (O2), hydroxide (OH), and carbon dioxide (CO2). But Europa-UVS measurements also might be able to detect simple hydrocarbons such as methane (CH4) and ethane (C2H6). Those are building blocks for complex molecules like amino acids — the raw materials of life as we know it. The mission isn’t directly seeking life on Europa, but instead will determine if the moon could support life. Organic molecules in a plume or on the surface would suggest that Europa may have the ingredients for some form of life.
Meet the Team
Meet the Team

Tracy Becker is a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute. She's on the Europa-UVS team, and eager to search for plumes at Europa. “Europa has always been one of the most interesting satellites in the solar system.
Europa's Ocean Ascending – NASA's Europa Clipper
This image, taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft, shows a same-scale comparison between Arbela Sulcus on Jupiter's moon Ganymede (left) and an unnamed band on another Jovian moon, Europa (right).

As the animation runs forward, the ice shell is deformed by gravitational interactions with Jupiter. The cold, brittle ice at the surface gets pulled apart. At the same time, faults in the upper ice form, heal, and re-form (visible as diagonal yellow, green and blue lines in the upper center of the animation). The churning material that quickly fills the bottom half of the view is a collection of tiny white dots representing bits of Europa’s ocean that have been frozen into the bottom of Europa’s ice shell (i.e. where the liquid ocean is in contact with the frozen shell).
In the paper, the scientists describe it as “fossil” ocean material because the bits of ocean trapped in Europa’s ice shell spend many hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years being carried to the surface. In other words, by the time the ocean material reaches Europa’s surface where it can be analyzed by a passing spacecraft, it no longer serves as a sample of Europa’s ocean as it is in the present. Instead, the spacecraft would actually be studying Europa’s ocean as it was a million or more years ago. Hence, it is fossil ocean material.
NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft is intended to launch in the early 2020s. The spacecraft will then orbit Jupiter and become the first spacecraft to study Europa exclusively, including the composition of the moon’s surface material. The mission will likely be able to test the model simulated above by using ice-penetrating radar to probe the moon’s bands. If Europa indeed behaves the way the simulation suggests, it might carry ocean material to the moon’s surface, where Europa Clipper would analyze it remotely using the spacecraft’s infrared and ultraviolet instruments, among others. Scientists could then study the material’s composition to consider whether Europa’s ocean might be hospitable for some form of life.

RELATED LINKS:

Evidence for an ocean
About Europa in general
Ingredients for life?
About Europa Clipper

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NASA’s Webb Finds Carbon Source on Surface of Jupiter’s Moon Europa - NASA
Moreover, it was deposited on a geologically recent timescale. This discovery has important implications for the potential habitability of Europa’s ocean.

This graphic shows a map of Europa’s surface with NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in the first panel and compositional maps derived from Webb’s NIRSpec/IFU (Near Infrared Spectrograph’s Integral Field Unit) data in the following three panels. In the compositional maps, the white pixels correspond to carbon dioxide in the large-scale region of disrupted chaos terrain known as Tara Regio (center and right), with additional concentrations within portions of the chaos region Powys Regio (left). The second and third panels show evidence of crystalline carbon dioxide, while the fourth panel indicates a complexed and amorphous form of carbon dioxide.
Science Credit: Geronimo Villanueva (NASA/GSFC), Samantha Trumbo (Cornell Univ.), NASA, ESA, CSA. Image Processing Credit: Geronimo Villanueva (NASA/GSFC), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Download the full-resolution, uncompressed version and supporting visuals from the Space Telescope Science Institute.

“On Earth, life likes chemical diversity – the more diversity, the better. We’re carbon-based life. Understanding the chemistry of Europa’s ocean will help us determine whether it’s hostile to life as we know it, or if it might be a good place for life,” said Geronimo Villanueva of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, lead author of one of two independent papers describing the findings.
“We now think that we have observational evidence that the carbon we see on Europa’s surface came from the ocean. That’s not a trivial thing. Carbon is a biologically essential element,” added Samantha Trumbo of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, lead author of the second paper analyzing these data.
NASA plans to launch its Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will perform dozens of close flybys of Europa to further investigate whether it could have conditions suitable for life, in October 2024.
A Surface-Ocean Connection
NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter’s Moon Europa
NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter’s Moon Europa

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 Solar System
 . NASA Unveils Design for Message Heading to Jupiter’s Moon Europa
 
 March 8, 2024
 This side of a commemorative plate mounted on NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft features U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s handwritten “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa.” It will be affixed with a silicon microchip stenciled with names submitted by the public. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech 
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 When it launches in October, the agency’s Europa Clipper spacecraft will carry a richly layered dispatch that includes more than 2.6 million names submitted by the public.
 Following in NASA’s storied tradition of sending inspirational messages into space, the agency has special plans for Europa Clipper, which later this year will launch toward Jupiter’s moon Europa. The moon shows strong evidence of an ocean under its icy crust, with more than twice the amount of water of all of Earth’s oceans combined. A triangular metal plate on the spacecraft will honor that connection to Earth in several ways.At the heart of the artifact is an engraving of U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón’s handwritten “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” along with a silicon microchip stenciled with more than 2.6 million names submitted by the public. The microchip will be the centerpiece of an illustration of a bottle amid the Jovian system – a reference to NASA’s “Message in a Bottle” campaign, which invited the public to send their names with the spacecraft.A ‘Golden Record’ for EuropaMade of the metal tantalum and about 7 by 11 inches (18 by 28 centimeters), the plate features graphic elements on both sides. The outward-facing panel features art that highlights Earth’s connection to Europa. Linguists collected recordings of the word “water” spoken in 103 languages, from families of languages around the world.
Greenland Ice, Jupiter Moon Share Similar Feature – NASA's Europa Clipper
The ridge features on Europa, while similar to the Greenland ridges, are much larger and with taller peaks, perhaps due in part to lower gravity on Europa.

A double ridge cutting across the surface of Europa is seen in this mosaic of two images taken by NASA’s Galileo during the spacecraft’s close flyby on Feb. 20, 1997. Analysis of a similar feature in Greenland suggests shallow liquid water may be ubiquitous across the Jovian moon’s icy shell. Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU

Europa Clipper’s REASON instrument is designed to make the same kind of measurements at Europa that the IceBridge radar made in Greenland. Both use radio waves that can penetrate deeply into ice. The same waves, however, cannot penetrate liquid water and are instead reflected back to the radar instrument. Water shows up as a bright patch in the radar images. These radargrams can therefore provide a vertical profile of water and ice deep below the surface.
“You get reflections that are a thousand times brighter for water as opposed to ice,” Schroeder said.
Schroeder, a co-investigator on REASON and part of a group that studies Europa’s interior, said the new study could help the Europa Clipper team design observations to determine whether the ridges on the moon and in Greenland arose from the same underlying causes – and whether water pockets are common within Europa’s icy shell.
The study also highlights the growing synergy between scientists who study our planetary neighbors in the solar system and those who focus on Earth.
“This research will help us either use Earth to understand what we will see on Europa or, when we get to Europa, help us interpret what we see when we get there,” Schroeder said.
More About the Mission
Missions such as Europa Clipper contribute to the field of astrobiology, the interdisciplinary research on the variables and conditions of distant worlds that could harbor life as we know it. While Europa Clipper is not a life-detection mission, it will conduct detailed reconnaissance of Europa and investigate whether the icy moon, with its subsurface ocean, has the capability to support life. Understanding Europa’s habitability will help scientists better understand how life developed on Earth and the potential for finding life beyond our planet.
Europa Clipper High Gain Antenna Undergoes Testing at Langley – NASA's Europa Clipper
Europa Clipper High Gain Antenna Undergoes Testing at Langley – NASA's Europa Clipper

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| April 1, 2019

Europa Clipper High Gain Antenna Undergoes Testing at Langley

Joe Atkinson
NASA Langley Research Center

A full-scale prototype of the high-gain antenna on NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft is undergoing testing in the Experimental Test Range at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Credit: NASA/Langley 

It probably goes without saying, but this isn't your everyday satellite dish.
In fact, it's not a satellite dish at all. It's a high-gain antenna (HGA), and a future version of it will send and receive signals to and from Earth from a looping orbit around Jupiter.
The antenna will take that long journey aboard NASA's Europa Clipper, a spacecraft that will conduct detailed reconnaissance of Jupiter's moon Europa to see whether the icy orb could harbor conditions suitable for life. Scientists believe there's a massive salty ocean beneath Europa's icy surface. The antenna will beam back high-resolution images and scientific data from Europa Clipper's cameras and science instruments.
The full-scale prototype antenna, which at 10 feet (3 meters) tall is the same height as a standard basketball hoop, is in the Experimental Test Range (ETR) at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Researchers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, and Langley are testing the prototype in the ETR in order to assess its performance and demonstrate the high pointing accuracies required for the Europa Clipper mission.
The ETR is an indoor electromagnetic test facility that allows researchers to characterize transmitters, receivers, antennas and other electromagnetic components and subsystems in a scientifically controlled environment.
"Several years ago we scoured the country to find a facility that was capable of making the difficult measurements that would be required on the HGA and found that the ETR clearly was it,"said Thomas Magner, assistant project manager for Europa Clipper at the Applied Physics Laboratory.
Europa Glows: Radiation Does a Bright Number on Jupiter's Moon – NASA's Europa Clipper
More information about Europa and Europa Clipper can be found here:
europa.nasa.gov

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News Media Contact
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-6215
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
Grey Hautaluoma / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0668 / 202-358-1501
grey.hautaluoma-1@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov
2020-211

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U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, who is known for work that explores the human connection to the natural world, is crafting a new poem dedicated to NASA’s Europa Clipper mission.

A Voice Among the Stars: Poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón Will Ride to Europa on NASA Spacecraft

La poetisa laureada estadounidense Ada Limón, conocida por su trabajo que explora la conexión humana con el mundo natural, está escribiendo un nuevo poema dedicado a la misión Europa Clipper de la NASA.

Una voz entre las estrellas: Poema de la poetisa laureada estadounidense Ada Limón viajará a Europa en una nave espacial de la NASA

How will Europa Clipper see through Europa's thick ice shell to study the moon's ocean?

Mission Dispatch: Using Radar to Study Earth and Europa

Parallel ice ridges, a common feature on Jupiter’s moon Europa, are also found on Greenland’s ice sheet.

Greenland Ice, Jupiter Moon Share Similar Feature

Jupiter’s moon Europa and its global ocean may currently have conditions suitable for life.
Surface of Jupiter's Moon Europa Churned by Small Impacts – NASA's Europa Clipper
Surface of Jupiter's Moon Europa Churned by Small Impacts – NASA's Europa Clipper

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| July 12, 2021

Surface of Jupiter's Moon Europa Churned by Small Impacts

In this zoomed-in image of Europa’s surface, captured by NASA’s Galileo mission, the thin, bright layer, visible atop a cliff in the center shows the kind of areas churned by impact gardening. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Jupiter’s moon Europa and its global ocean may currently have conditions suitable for life. Scientists are studying processes on the icy surface as they prepare to explore.
It’s easy to see the impact of space debris on our Moon, where the ancient, battered surface is covered with craters and scars. Jupiter’s icy moon Europa withstands a similar trouncing – along with a punch of super-intense radiation. As the uppermost surface of the icy moon churns, material brought to the surface is zapped by high-energy electron radiation accelerated by Jupiter.
NASA-funded scientists are studying the cumulative effects of small impacts on Europa’s surface as they prepare to explore the distant moon with the Europa Clipper mission and study the possibilities for a future lander mission. Europa is of particular scientific interest because its salty ocean, which lies beneath a thick layer of ice, may currently have conditions suitable for existing life. That water may even make its way into the icy crust and onto the moon’s surface.
New research and modeling estimate how far down that surface is disturbed by the process called “impact gardening.” The work, published July 12 in Nature Astronomy, estimates that the surface of Europa has been churned by small impacts to an average depth of about 12 inches (30 centimeters) over tens of millions of years. And any molecules that might qualify as potential biosignatures, which include chemical signs of life, could be affected at that depth.
That’s because the impacts would churn some material to the surface, where radiation would likely break the bonds of any potential large, delicate molecules generated by biology.
Surface of Jupiter's Moon Europa Churned by Small Impacts – NASA's Europa Clipper
“If we want to understand the physical characteristics and how planets in general evolve, we need to understand the role impact gardening has in reshaping them.”
Managed by JPL for NASA, Europa Clipper will help develop that understanding. The spacecraft, targeting a 2024 launch, will conduct a series of close flybys of Europa as it orbits Jupiter. It will carry instruments to thoroughly survey the moon, as well as sample the dust and gases that are kicked up above the surface.
More About the Mission
Missions such as Europa Clipper contribute to the field of astrobiology, the interdisciplinary research on the variables and conditions of distant worlds that could harbor life as we know it. While Europa Clipper is not a life-detection mission, it will conduct detailed reconnaissance of Europa and investigate whether the icy moon, with its subsurface ocean, has the capability to support life. Understanding Europa’s habitability will help scientists better understand how life developed on Earth and the potential for finding life beyond our planet.
Managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California, JPL leads the development of the Europa Clipper mission in partnership with APL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, executes program management of the Europa Clipper mission. 
More information about Europa can be found here:
europa.nasa.gov

News Media Contacts
Gretchen McCartney
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-6215
gretchen.p.mccartney@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

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This color-enhanced image of Jupiter and two of its largest moons – Io and Europa – was captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft as it performed its eighth flyby of the gas giant planet.

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NASA Mission Named 'Europa Clipper'
Evidence for an Ocean | Why Europa – NASA's Europa Clipper
These images revealed a surface brighter than that of Earth's moon, crisscrossed with numerous bands and ridges, and with a surprising lack of large impact craters, tall cliffs or mountains (in other words, a very smooth surface, relative to the other icy moons).

Learn about the history of exploring Europa

History

Even though the Voyagers did not pass extremely close to Europa, their images were of high enough quality that researchers noted some of the dark bands had opposite sides that matched each other extremely well, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. These cracks had separated, and dark, icy material appeared to have flowed into the opened gaps, suggesting that the surface had been active at some time in the past. Voyager images showed only a handful of impact craters, which are expected to build up over time as a planetary surface is constantly bombarded by meteorites over billions of years until the surface is covered in craters. Thus, a lack of large impact craters suggested that the moon's surface was relatively young and implied that something had erased them - such as icy, volcanic flows, or settling of the icy crust under its own weight.

A small region of the thin, disrupted, ice crust in the Conamara region of Jupiter's moon Europa showing the interplay of surface color with ice structures. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona 

Scientists also found that the patterns of some of the longest linear features on the surface did not fit predicted patterns of fractures that should be created by tides as Europa orbits Jupiter. They determined that the patterns would fit very well if Europa's surface could move independently and was not locked to the rest of the interior, as would be the case if a layer of liquid or slightly warmer ice existed between the crust and deep interior.
There also were tantalizing hints that perhaps Europa had a warm interior at some time in the past, and perhaps still does. Studies of how tidal heating should affect Europa suggested that a global subsurface ocean might exist within the icy moon today. 

These intriguing findings led to a strong sense of anticipation for the Galileo mission, which launched in 1989 and entered orbit around Jupiter in 1995. Galileo's primary mission included observations of each the four Galilean satellites during repeated flybys.