What the Europa Clipper Mission Might Discover at Europa! w/Dr. Erin Leonard &

[@geosociety]

Make sure to check out part 1 all about the Europa's geology and its implications for life in Europa's ocean on @geogirl: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mXencnesrc96ptEsi=eBHUkbUZz9Ny1dd7 ! 🎉🚀🛰

[@Kathregote]

How do I get in contact with you all? The website doesn't seem to be accessible where I am.

[@barbaradurfee645]

NASA’s teamwork/collaboration/mission planning culture inspires pride and confidence! Thanks for sharing these interviews.

[@arenadi5776]

I've been following you on Geogirl for a while already Dr. Phillips, I'm glad I'm able to get extra content here too! I've always had a passing interest in geology but I've learned a lot since starting to watch your channel. Your manner and style make the content easily digestible especially on my commutes. Would you consider making these into podcast audio episodes?

[@geosociety]

Thank you so much for the kind words! (This is Rachel here :) ) That is a great question, I have always loved the idea of making a podcast, but haven't had the time. Maybe over the next year or so I'll start to look into it for after my postdoc research! :) Good to know someone would enjoy that!

[@G5rry]

@@geosocietyI would subscribe to that podcast :)

[@arenadi5776]

@@geosociety Yes! That would be amazing. I think you would make a great podcast host. You could create an easily accessible method for people who would listen to a 30-minute podcast while driving but can't sit and watch a 30 minute video and introduce listeners to topics they don't even know about yet. And think about how awesome it would be to create a platform for a lot of the guests you've interviewed, doing an interview format podcast like this episode. I also loved seeing you interacting with everyone at GSA conference and think about how fun a show would be if you had your friend group coming in as guests and giving them a place to talk about their specializations. I hope we can keep you excited about the idea while you're working on your postdoc :)

[@JKTCGMV13]

Dropping in from Geogirl’s video 💯

[@paleo747]

Thank you so much for this talk. I was obsessed with europa in high-school, but also with fossils and ended becoming a paleontologist, but this reignited something. Thank you again for this. I subscribed to both channels.

[@J.Battles]

Very exciting, thank you both for sharing with us! I can not imagine working so long on a project, initiating it, then having to wait 5+ years to observe its success. I already get impatient enough while waiting sometimes close to a year just to see construction completed on a house I've designed. However, put into that perspective, your wait is miniscule in comparison. The importance of your work, the scale of the discoveries, the collective brilliance of the team, the project budget, and every other aspect of the mission are far greater than 5x the magnitude of anything I've ever done. Considering the relative differences between the two, 5 years is nearly instantaneous.

[@kevinricherson888]

Quite an interesting discussion. Thanks.

[@ukaszbadura5670]

Good to see you on the official GSA channel!

[@EngrzView]

Exceptional ❤

[@qwertyuiop1st]

Europa apparently has a surface gravity of 0.134g... the bottom of that 100 km deep ocean is going to have incredible pressure, and is probably the most resource-rich part of the ocean.... There may be some fascinating evolutionary options down there....

[@robine9973]

I'm so excited about this mission! 😃

[@EnRouteToMoon]

Thanks, Erin & Rachel ! Very informative and interesting 👍👍

[@johnp9988]

Ayye part 2! Thanks for sharing! 🍿

[@w0ttheh3ll]

Europa Clipper's launch from Florida was delayed due to the hurricane and is currently scheduled for October 14th.

[@lethargogpeterson4083]

I like how, at about @6:36, they are talking about having to strip off instruments as part of cost and weight trade offs...and just then one of the ceiling lights in the background goes out. It's like it's volunteering. "Sacrifice me. I'm tired anyway."

[@lethargogpeterson4083]

"No! Hang in there light. We need you." @7:41 it's back.

[@pfsteinbach]

Thanks for the mission info, Rachel and Erin! Hey, I was just wondering how long the 49 flybys period takes, how long each flyby takes, whether there's variation in flyby timing to reorient the spacecraft to fly by different parts of the moon, that kind of thing. That info's probably somewhere in the detailed mission info (if we have access to it), but it would be nice to include that in a great overview like this one.

[@jamesmitchell6925]

I love the freeze frame at 4:20 during the animation lol 7:40 The person realizes she doesn’t want to be in the video lol

[@meesalikeu]

this is great stuff - i wonder if juice can take a selfie with clipper? 🎉

[@martinhuhn7813]

I wonder, what possible potential observation by the clipper mission could really allow us to judge, if Europa is habitable. What could potentially be there, that allows the conclusion, that the planet is not habitable at all (if that is the case)? And other than direct observation of life - which the mission is not designed to do - what which proof could it provide, that Europa is habitable (if that was the case)? Pockets of liquid water within the ice mantle are neither necessary for it to be habitable nor would their existence be sufficient. Exchange of material between the ocean and the surface - there obviously is some, but which amount would allow a conclusion about plantetary habitability? In my mind, it would make a whole lot more sense to say, that the mission will try to characterize different potential habitats there and to find out, which could be the easiest spots to take a closer look in later missions.

[@geosociety]

Well, right now, we know that the surface has undergone geologic processes/tectonics in the last 100 million years, but we do not know whether it is still currently active (undergoing tectonic activity today). If it is currently tectonically active (and subsurface ocean material is cycling with surface material), this makes the ocean beneath the subsurface much more likely to be habitable (especially if we find metabolic redox pair compounds at its surface - for example, a suite of sulfur compounds that would allow for sulfur-based metabolisms to be carried out in its ocean). Moreover, gravity data and understanding Europa's interior layers and their structures & thicknesses will help us understand what's beneath the ocean. If there is direct water-rock interactions on Europa's seafloor (for example, hydrothermal vent activity) that would mean the ocean is certainly habitable for at least some very specific microbial life (for example, methanogens). Obviously, we won't be able to say with certainty whether hydrothermal vents are active on Europa with a flyby mission, but if there are active plumes at europa's surface, that is a strong indication, for example, that there is likely active hydrothermal activity at its seafloor driving such plumes. Anyway, there are many other ways that we will be able to assess Europa's habitability with clipper, and that is actually the easy part in a sense, because even if we can say that it is likely habitable to (at least some) earth-type life, we cannot say with certainty whether it actually has such life on/in it unless we were to find very specific types of organic molecules or metabolic redox pairs (like I mentioned above) in plume material for example (and even then, we'd have to be able to fully rule out abiotic formation processes). So in summary, I think the major goal of 'determining Europa's habitability' comes with the disclaimer that: we will only be able to say whether it's ocean is habitable based on what the best fit models for its ocean conditions suggest (based on the data collected by clipper & juice combined with what we know from past missions), and that, of course, does not directly mean that it is inhabited. But we also have to remember that: what is habitable for Earth life (life as we know it) may not be the same requirements for extraterrestrial life-- that is, maybe if we determine that Europa is not habitable for Earth life, it may still be habitable for non-Earth life (but this is something we can't necessarily study because we can't study what we don't know or have never been exposed to). Anyway, this is a long way of saying, yes, Europa's habitability is more complicated than a yes or no question, but there are so many parameters that we will get from Clipper that will provide us a lot more insight into the ocean conditions and potential habitability of Europa under its ice crust. :)

[@martinhuhn7813]

@@geosociety Thanks for the detailed answer. Indeed, I had earth life or close analogues in mind. The point, that it isn´t a yes or no question was rather important to me - because for most of all known places we have pretty good reason to think, that it is.

[@toddsawicki]

Great explanation thx! (Also a Geogirl regular viewer)

[@Attila_Beregi]

well 10th is now out because of the storm; prob 12th

[@geosociety]

Yea, this was filmed before that change, but yes, still very soon! And very exciting :D

[@Attila_Beregi]

@@geosociety oh yea i assumed so. life of a youtuber :D especially with space missions.

[@victorkrawchuk9141]

Thanks for these videos! I'm also really excited about Europa Clipper! I wonder if Clipper will gather data on the strength of the proposed "Redox Gradient" in Europa's ice. If it's strong, then interaction between Jupiter's ionizing radiation and Europa's ice will cause oxygen to percolate down into the ocean, as well as hydrogen to be emitted from the surface into space. However, the Juno craft recently reported that less hydrogen was detected around Europa than would be expected from this process. Will Clipper try to clarify Juno's findings? If significant amounts of oxygen have been flowing down to Europa's ocean, there might be a chance that multicellular life has evolved there. I'm not totally sure that Redox Gradients are a geology subject, but I recently spoke with Christine McCarthy at Lamont Observatory in Palisades NY about this subject, as she published a paper about Redox Gradients on Europa a few years ago. So I'm guessing they are, but I'm sorry if I'm wrong... Anyway it would be really cool if we eventually find something that looks like Anomalocaris in Europa's ocean...

[@skuzzbunny]

i guess the 10th isn't happening, but I'm glad to hear they have such a long open window!!

[@_andrewvia]

I should ask Scott Manley this question, but you may know (and he only answers his Patrons): Every increase in the weight of a mission requires an increase in fuel, plus more fuel to lift the extra fuel. But there are always stories about having to remove some instruments from the mission. Is there an upper limit to how much fuel can be carried? Can the rocket not just be made taller?

[@geosociety]

To my understanding yes, there is an upper limit to how much fuel can be carried because the more fuel = more mass = more money and we always have a limit on money :) I think if the budget was unlimited, we could have a 'relatively unlimited' fuel cap!

[@tonyf8358]

Dr. Erin Leonard Can you clarify if Europa clipper will do any science during JOI? Or will they only focus on JOI? It would be nice for some approach images of the moons.

[@hazardousmaterials1284]

Geogirl: "I'll be popping on here on the geosociety channel a little bit more this year..." Instant subscribe!!!

[@geosociety]

Thank you !! (this is Rachel/geo girl btw haha)

[@meesalikeu]

i also always wonder how flying thru plumes doesnt muck up the space craft with gunk & ice? best to do it last?

[@geosociety]

That's a wonderful question! I'd have to ask Dr. Leonard! ;)

[@TriRabbi]

Life requires more than ingredients. It requires a recipe.

[@andyboofon]

Couldn’t we send a probe like Europa Clipper and load it with a dozen heavily shielded cube sats and fire them at Europa as the probe performs multiple flybys? Get that orbital presence?

[@oxcart4172]

Doesn't the Juice mission that's already on its way count?

[@williamfarrell2958]

How deep would you have to dive into the ocean to negate the radiation?

[@spanke2999]

just a few meters... water is really cool with respect to slowing 'stuff' down

[@nicholasmaude6906]

The Europa Clipper has been successfully since this video was uploaded. kzbin.info/www/bejne/ooK3oIeNgNynq9k

[@phil20_20]

NO! 🤭😆 Someday somewhere, when you least expect it, someone will come up to you and say, "Smile, we are from another planet!" 🖖👽

[@smkolins]

and then there's the weather…

[@Kopernicus67]

It is sad that a full 45 years after the first empirical evidence for a subsurface ocean on Europa, and the observed tidal warming of the Galilean moons, we finally have a mission dedicated to observing from afar rather than actual landing and sampling. I grew up with the space program, and as a society, we just don't invest in exploration the way we should. If you really want to know if there is life anywhere, you need one quick sample and one quick observation - chiral amino acids. You can make nucleotide bases and amino acids by non-living processes, but they are racemic (non-handed). Any amino acid or nucleotide made by life will have a handedness to it. The perfect Europa probe would land at one of the red-brown regions, sample the regolith at depth (Jovian environment destroys everything at the surface near instantly, including C-C bonds) and bring the sample where humans can run complex testing.

[@free_spirit1]

Sorry but the "will it find life" question is completely pointless without a lander. Even if by some cosmic miracle europa clipper found something from which life could be inferred, it would still just be an inference. Even if you could send a microsocope to europa and make some slides and see some bacteria move around it would still be disputable as brownian motion or something similar. Even a still image of an alien plant could be easily disputed, since "it could just be some kind of highly complex natural formation". The only thing that would settle the debate would be high res crystal clear video, of an animal moving intelligently. And it would have to interact with its environment in a way that was completely unambiguously intelligent. It would have to be completely iron-clad undebunkable, or we will spend the next 100 years debating whether we actually found something or not. Sorry if I'm so grumpy about this, but between the mars labeled release experiment, fossilized bacteria in martian meteorites, phosphine from venus and Przybylski's star, a dozen wow signals and ambiguous transients I've been burned one time too many. Call me when it moves and it is on video.

[@TheloniousBosch]

Maybe it’s time to become GeoWoman

[@michaelanderson3096]

2010: The year we made contact movie 😮.

[@garyuntermeyer7976]

"Attempt no landing there.'

[@michaelanderson3096]

@@garyuntermeyer7976 Drill baby drill with a nuclear thermal electric drill.

[@simonlealbarria6550]

2030 seems so far away :(

[@geosociety]

It'll be here before we know it! ;) (just like 2024 was haha)

[@SEEKER_46]

There better be whales!

[@Cider4144]

Made the wrong choice of destination. Should have gone to Enceladus to find life. You can thank me later.

[@geosociety]

There are many teams working on designing missions to enceladus, so it's not an either/or, it's both! :D One day we will get to enceladus too!

[@Cider4144]

@@geosociety I will look at Europa as a training mission before the real deal! 😁

[@hyrumhanson3390]

It would add another few years of travel time. Satern is way out there

[@TubeAddict999]

What do you know that the rest of us don't?

[@Jon6429]

If life is found on another world I wonder what the human race will discover about itself?

[@istvansipos9940]

denial. special pleading. And some science. But scams and superstitions sell well, so we would mainly "discover" the 2 things above.

[@michaeleisenberg7867]

Rachel 🛸, That was really good. It's too bad it takes five plus years to get there. 💺🎢🎯🛷 🙏

[@geosociety]

Yea, but before we know it, we'll blink and boom! We'll be there! ;D