In October, an important stage in the study of extraterrestrial life took place. A space mission set off on a multi-year journey from the launch pad of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA Europa Mission must confirm or refute the fact of life on Jupiter's moon - Europa.
We will not stay away from this event and will tell you all the most interesting things about the history of the discovery of Jupiter's satellites and the preparation of the mission. We will also talk about VR technologies and the prospects for creating digital copies of people in metaverses that can be used to train astronauts.
Why Europa
At the end of 1979, scientists received images of Jupiter and its satellites. An ice crust was noticed in one of the images. The unusual surface and the peculiarities of the satellite's rotation suggested that a giant ocean could be hidden under the ice. And where there is water, there may be life.
#NASA supported this hypothesis, stating, "The ocean of Europa is one of the most promising places to search for life in the solar system." Since then, Europa has become the subject of close study.
Liquid water is a sign of life, and if there really is an ocean hidden under the ice, then the chances of discovering at least the simplest forms of life increase significantly.
Preparing the NASA Europa Mission
NASA has long discussed the priorities for the study. Nevertheless, after much deliberation and under pressure from the scientific community, it was decided to send a probe to Europa to search for extraterrestrial life. The mission was called Europa Clipper.
NASA faced difficulties while preparing for the mission: there were both technical difficulties and problems with funding.
The project was estimated at $5 billion, and during the preparation process, its budget continued to grow. Congress categorically did not like this, they demanded cuts. So scientists had to sacrifice one of the devices.
At first, it was planned that Europa Clipper would rotate in orbit, and the second probe would land on the surface, but cost savings turned out to be a priority, and the device was left alone.
The type of a rocket for the launch was also optimized. At first, it was a heavy, powerful SLS worth $2 billion. In order to save money, it was replaced with Falcon Heavy. Elon Musk and his private company SpaceX will take twice as long to carry the probe to Jupiter - almost six years - but ten times cheaper.
Mission under threat
The #Europa Clipper probe turned out to be much heavier than expected: its weight was 6,065 kilograms, a third of which was fuel.
Previously, for interplanetary flights, generators that were powered by plutonium-238 were used. But now there is a shortage of plutonium-238 in the US due to a long break in its production.
Since the device is equipped with powerful, energy-intensive equipment, it was necessary to add a couple of huge solar panels that would open like wings.
For research, the device has various material analyzers, a radar, high-resolution cameras, a device for recording thermal radiation. In general, everything to map and study the atmosphere, surface and internal ocean of Europa.
All the electronics of the device had to be hidden in a special 150-kilogram storage facility, protecting the electronic components from encountering Jupiter's radiation belts, which are thousands of times more powerful than Earth's. It was with radiation that the problem occurred.
The mission was in jeopardy of failure: during tests it turned out that some chips fail even at low levels of radiation. If it had been necessary to change the chips, the flight would have had to be postponed until next year. Fortunately, the problem was solvable and the launch took place.
The ship is expected to arrive at Jupiter in 2030, enter its orbit and rotate, making flights around Europa. The probe will make 50 turns around the planet. In this way, it will scan the entire surface of the satellite and send the results to Earth.
Exploration of extraterrestrial life
Of course, you should not hope to meet intelligent squids and octopuses on Europa, at best there will be bacteria.
NASA took an imaginative approach to the appeal to other civilizations. This time, the letter was "put" in a symbolic bottle. The message is a tantalum plate on the front side of which there is an engraving in the form of acoustic tracks from 103 variations of the word "water". They didn't even forget about sign language: the water symbol is also on the sign language alphabet.
Apparently, in case the aliens do speak English, the back of the plate has lines from a work that the poetess Ada Limon wrote to be sent specifically on an interplanetary journey. They also placed the face of the father of planetology, Ron Greeley, the Drake equation and the range of optimal frequencies for communication with alien civilizations.
The message included the names of millions of people who took part in the NASA campaign. They were downloaded onto a tiny chip, which was installed on a drawing depicting the orbits of the four largest satellites of Jupiter. In the center of the plate, they drew a bottle.
Lado Okhotnikov, CEO Holiverse, about the next stage in space exploration
The next goal of space expeditions will most likely be to find resources and places suitable for human habitation. The colonization of space has long been the concern of humanity. NASA considers the satellites of Jupiter Ganymede and Callisto to be the most suitable for colonization.
Lado Okhotnikov, CEO of the Holiverse metaverse , believes that the opportunities provided by the virtual world should be fully utilized in the development and testing of such missions.
The company has developed a unique way to create avatars based on human #DNA. It is assumed that astronauts will be able to work through missions in virtual reality with accuracy.
In the metaverse, it is possible to simulate a wide variety of conditions and situations. An avatar modeled on the astronaut's DNA provides a reaction to an event that is specific to this person. This applies to everything: health, nutrition, communication, education and many other aspects of life.
Of course, space colonization sounds like a distant prospect or even science fiction, but preparations are already in full swing. And this applies not only to rockets and space equipment.
New nutrition systems, health maintenance and other practices are being developed that will help during a long interstellar journey.
Holiverse is already actively investing in research and development, on the basis of which it creates personalized programs for maintaining health and longevity at the level of human genes, which completely change our understanding of a healthy lifestyle.
We hope that soon the technologies developed by Holiverse will help people not only in maintaining health and beauty, but also in space exploration.