NASA Plans to Drill Into Europa's Crust In Search of Life
http://gizmodo.com/nasa-plans-to-drill-toward-europas-ocean-in-search-of-l-1792233535
Since early 2016, a NASA-employed Science Definition Team (SDT) of 21 researchers has been crafting a plan to send a robotic probe to Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter, located over 390 million miles from Earth. On February 7th, that team delivered their first report to NASA, detailing their recommendations for that future mission, which will search for life by drilling toward the subterranean ocean scientists strongly suspect to exist beneath the icy moon’s surface. The team hopes to launch as soon as 2031.
In this new report, the SDT worked with NASA engineers to design a probe that would be capable of drilling about four inches into Europa’s icy crust to collect samples that could be analyzed on the spacecraft for signs of life. If the lander is successful, a future mission to Europa could drill even further, maybe even reaching the subterranean ocean.
