After enjoying considerable success through its roving probes as they gathered and analysed samples from the surface of Mars, American space administration NASA has revealed it is joining forces with the European Space Agency (ESA) in an effort to explore some of the solar system’s outer bodies.
NASA joins with ESA to explore Jupiter and its moons, including Europa (pictured). Image: NASA.
According to this week’s announcement, both NASA and the ESA are planning to launch individual spacecraft by 2020. These craft are expected to arrive at the Jovian system in 2026, whereupon they will begin a three-year exploration of Jupiter and four of its moons (Europa, Ganymede, Io, and Callisto).
Once the Jupiter mission has been completed, the space agencies will then turn their collective exploratory attentions towards Saturn and its accompanying moons Titan and Enceladus.
Stargazing scientists are eager to take a closer look at Europa after the far-reaching Galileo space probe uncovered what’s believed to be a significant body of underground water beneath the moon’s icy surface as it investigated the Jovian system between 1995 and 2003.
Scientific American reports that NASA saw enough potential for life in the mysteries of Europa that it even slammed Galileo into Jupiter at the conclusion of its mission rather than risk contaminating the watery moon’s ocean.
Far from finished with its relationship with Mars, NASA is expected to launch its advanced Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) towards the Red Planet in the latter half of 2011.
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