NASA spacecraft in Europe will use the nine science instruments to study the hidden ice ocean of Jupiter's moon, or rather - its ability to support life.
Probe to Europe, which is scheduled for launch in early to mid-2020s, will be equipped with super fine cameras, heat detectors, ice radar and other tools that will shed light on the composition of the surface of the satellite and the nature of its salty subterranean ocean.
Astrobiologists consider the 100-kilometer wide moon as one of the best options to save for extraterrestrial life in the solar system.
Europe hides salty ocean under its ice shell, and it apparently contacted with Stonemantle satellite, which makes possible a number of complex chemical reactions. In addition, scientists believe that the seabed of Europe are also hydrothermal vents that provide a potential source of energy for life forms, if they exist in the dark depths (life thrives in underwater holes of the earth, and some researchers believe it was there that the first organisms planet ).
Most of what scientists know about Europe, based on data collected by NASA's mission to "Galileo", located in the orbit of Jupiter in the 1990s and early 2000s, carrying about a dozen spans Europe during this period. The new mission, estimated at about $ 2 billion., Aimed at strengthening and a significant increase of knowledge, in particular, investigate the possibility of maintaining life in this icy world.
The space agency has received 33 offers tools and chose nine of them.
The visualization system of the probe will consist of a wide-angle camera and a narrow angle. These cameras will be able to map almost 90 percent of Europa's surface from a distance of 50 meters from the satellite.

The other two tools - a magnetometer and magnetic probe - will work together to determine the thickness of the ice shell of Europe, as well as its depth and salinity of the ocean. Ice radar will provide more detailed information on the icy crust of the satellite.

The probe will also be equipped with a thermal detector to accurately determine the active sites of the satellite - for example, areas where jets of water vapor spewed into space.

NASA space telescope "Hubble" has noticed signs of eruptions of geysers in 2012, but further searches have not yet confirmed their presence. However spectrograph aboard the probe will try to find and characterize these subtle features.

In addition, the infrared spectrometer will allow the probe to identify the composition of the surface of Europe.

The last two instruments - a mass spectrometer analyzer and dust - characterize gases and fine particulate matter, trapped in a space that will allow scientists to study the composition of the mission of the moon's surface without touching it.