Europa here we come: Colorado space instrument headed to Jupiter’s moon
An artist’s depiction of Europa Clipper passing over Jupiter’s moon Europa. (Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
On Oct. 14, 2024, NASA’s flagship Europa Clipper spacecraft launched from Florida to begin its more than six-year journey to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. Aboard the spacecraft is the SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA), a $53 million instrument designed and built by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at CU Boulder.
Europa Clipper will explore whether the moon harbors conditions that could support life. SUDA will play a vital role in that pursuit, collecting and analyzing tiny particles of ice flying above Europa. The gold-plated instrument is so accurate it can identify the compounds that make up those particles down to concentrations of just one part per million.
“Where SUDA really flourishes is with detecting trace amounts of stuff embedded in ice,” said Sascha Kempf, an associate professor in physics and at LASP.
Principal investigator
Sascha Kempf
Funding
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Collaboration + support
CU Boulder’s JILA, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP), Department of Physics; Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
Learn more about this topic:
Europa here we come: Colorado space instrument headed to Jupiter’s moon