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Joint Europa Mission (JEM) a multi-scale study of Europa to characterize its habitability and search for extant life

Michel Blanc 1 Nicolas André 1 Olga Prieto-Ballesteros 2 Javier Gómez-Elvira 2 Geraint Jones 3 Veerle Sterken 4, 5 William Desprats 6, 1 Leonid Gurvits 7, 8, 9 Krishan Khurana 10 Aljona Blöcker 11 Renaud Broquet 12 Emma Bunce 13 Cyril Cavel 12 Gaël Choblet 14 Geoffrey Colins 15 Marcello Coradini 16 John Cooper 17 Dominic Dirkx 18 Dominique Fontaine 19 Philippe Garnier 1 David Gaudin 6 Paul Hartogh 20 Luciano Iess 21 Adrian Jäggi 22 Sascha Kempf 23 Norbert Krupp 20 Luisa Lara 24 Jérémie Lasue 1 Valéry Lainey 25 François Leblanc 26 Jean-Pierre Lebreton 27 Andrea Longobardo 28 Ralph Lorenz 29 Philippe Martins 30 Zita Martins 31 Adam Masters 32 David Mimoun 6 Ernesto Palumba 28 Pascal Regnier 12 Joachim Saur 33 Adriaan Schutte 34 Edward Sittler 17 Tilman Spohn 35 Katrin Stephan 35 Károly Szegő 36 Federico Tosi 28 Steve Vance 37 Roland Wagner 35 Tim van Hoolst 38 Martin Volwerk 39 Frances Westall 40
1 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
2 CAB - Centro de Astrobiologia [Madrid]
3 MSSL - Mullard Space Science Laboratory
4 ETH Zürich - Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich [Zürich]
5 Astronomical Institute [Bern]
6 ISAE-SUPAERO - Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace
7 JIVE ERIC - Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe
8 TU Delft - Technische Universiteit Delft
9 CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science
10 IGPP - Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics [Los Angeles]
11 KTH - Royal Institute of Technology [Stockholm]
12 Airbus Defence and Space
13 University of Leicester
14 LPG - Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique [UMR 6112]
15 Wheaton College [Norton]
16 CSEO - Cyprus Space Exploration Organisation
17 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
18 TU Delft - Delft University of Technology
19 LPP - Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas
20 MPS - Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung
21 Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" [Rome]
22 University of Bern
23 LASP - Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics [Boulder]
24 IAA - Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía
25 IMCCE - Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Ephémérides
26 HELIOS - LATMOS
LATMOS - Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales
27 LPC2E - Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace
28 IAPS - Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali - INAF
29 APL - Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory [Laurel, MD]
30 Télécom ParisTech
31 University of Lisbon
32 Imperial College London
33 Universität zu Köln
34 SKA - Square Kilometre Array Organisation
35 DLR - Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt
36 Wigner Research Centre for Physics [Budapest]
37 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
38 ROB - Royal Observatory of Belgium [Brussels]
39 IWF - Space Research Institute of Austrian Academy of Sciences
40 CBM - Centre de biophysique moléculaire
Abstract : Europa is the closest and probably the most promising target to search for extant life in the Solar System, based on complementary evidence that it may fulfil the key criteria for habitability: the Galileo discovery of a sub-surface ocean; the many indications that the ice shell is active and may be partly permeable to transfer of chemical species, biomolecules and elementary forms of life; the identification of candidate thermal and chemical energy sources necessary to drive a metabolic activity near the ocean floor. In this article we are proposing that ESA collaborates with NASA to design and fly jointly an ambitious and exciting planetary mission, which we call the Joint Europa Mission (JEM), to reach two objectives: perform a full characterization of Europa's habitability with the capabilities of a Europa orbiter, and search for bio-signatures in the environment of Europa (surface, subsurface and exosphere) by the combination of an orbiter and a lander. JEM can build on the advanced understanding of this system which the missions preceding JEM will provide: Juno, JUICE and Europa Clipper, and on the Europa lander concept currently designed by NASA (Maize, report to OPAG, 2019).
Keywords : Habitability Outer planets exploration Search for life Jupiter system Ocean moon
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INSTITUT-TELECOM | SU-SCIENCES | INC-CNRS | UNIV-ORLEANS | OMP | UNIV-LILLE | SORBONNE-UNIVERSITE | LPC2E | IMCCE | UNIV-ANGERS | LPG | CNRS | UVSQ | CBM | INSU | LATMOS | UNIV-NANTES | OSUC | IP_PARIS | UNIV-TLSE3 | OMP-IRAP | OBSPM | INSERM | CIE | PSL | METEO | IRD | INFRES | LTCI | RMS | X | LABORATOIRE-DE-PHYSIQUE-DES-PLASMAS-LPP | LPP-PLASMAS-SPATIAUX | X-LPP | SU-TI | X-DEP-PHYS

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Michel Blanc, Nicolas André, Olga Prieto-Ballesteros, Javier Gómez-Elvira, Geraint Jones, et al.. Joint Europa Mission (JEM) a multi-scale study of Europa to characterize its habitability and search for extant life. Planetary and Space Science, Elsevier, 2020, 193, pp.104960. ⟨10.1016/j.pss.2020.104960⟩. ⟨insu-02883533⟩

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