This webinar is organized in the context of the On Things to Come series of ISSI-BJ.

Jupiter's moon Europa may be a habitable world. Galileo spacecraft data suggest that a global ocean exists beneath its frozen ice surface. A scarcity of large craters argues for a young surface and recent geological activity, and magnetometry implies that a salty ocean exists today. Europa's ocean and its surface are inherently linked: tidal deformation of the floating ice shell generates stresses that fracture and deform the surface to create ridges and bands; and dark spots, domes, and chaos are probably related to tidally driven heating of the ice shell. Europa's activity may permit the ingredients necessary for life to be present within the satellite's ocean.
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will explore Europa to investigate its habitability. The mission will employ a highly capable suite of instruments on a spacecraft that will make about 50 close flybys of Europa from Jupiter orbit, typically 25 – 100 km from Europa's surface.
The mission will interrogate the moon’s ice shell, ocean, composition, and geology, and it will seek current activity including putative plumes. This talk will summarize our state of knowledge about Europa and the science potential and status of the Europa Clipper mission.