NASA scientists are optimistic that the agency’s upcoming mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa could find traces of alien life. This could be the result of the mission’s experiment that involves analyzing samples from the moon’s atmosphere.

Currently, NASA is preparing to launch a new mission aimed at exploring Europa, which is one of the smallest moons orbiting Jupiter. The main objective of the mission, which will be carried out by the Clipper spacecraft, is to see if the icy moon is habitable.

Although finding traces of extraterrestrial life is not the goal of the mission, the team behind Clipper is optimistic that samples taken by the spacecraft might reveal evidence of alien organisms.

“We’re a habitability mission,” Robert Pappalardo, NASA’s project scientist for the Clipper mission said during the International Astronautical Congress in Washington according to Space.com. “We're trying to understand, Is Europa a habitable environment?"

"We're not a life-search mission," Pappalardo added. "But, if Europa's interior happened to be rich in organic microbes pouring out of it, we would be able to tell from the mass spectra — probably, possibly — that we're sensing life. That's a longshot, but it's not impossible."

Clipper’s mission objective will be carried out through the measurements that will be taken by an instrument known as a mass spectrometer, which will serve as one of the nine payloads of the spacecraft.

Through the mass spectrometer, Clipper will take samples from Europa’s atmosphere during its flybys. This experiment is based on the scientists’ belief that Europa’s surface emits plumes of water vapor and other material into its atmosphere.

"Early in the mission, we'll be searching for plumes and trying to understand, are they real?” Pappalardo explained. “Are they there? Where are they? Are they sporadic or continuously active?"

“And maybe we'll fortuitously go through a plume, or maybe we'll be able to adjust the orbit slightly in order to go through a plume," he added. "And if we do, then our in situ instruments, especially the mass spectrometer and the dust detector, will be able to sample that material in extreme detail to search for organic materials and to understand the detailed chemistry of Europa's interior."

NASA is preparing to launch its Europa Clipper mission sometime in 2025.

Europa Clipper
This artist's rendering shows NASA's Europa mission spacecraft, which is being developed for a launch sometime in the 2020s. The concept image shows two large solar arrays extending from the sides of the spacecraft, to which the mission's ice-penetrating radar antennas are attached. A saucer-shaped high-gain antenna is also side mounted, with a magnetometer boom placed next to it. On the forward end of the spacecraft (at left in this view) is a remote-sensing palette, which houses the rest of the science instrument payload. NASA/JPL-Caltech
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