How to Drill for Extraterrestrial Life on Europa
I n October, NASA’s Europa Clipper embarked on a long journey in search of alien life in the cosmos. The spacecraft isn’t due to arrive at Europa until 2030, and even then it will only sail around the moon at close range, without alighting on its surface. It will take many more years for scientists to determine if the dark subsurface ocean there could be capable of sustaining extraterrestrial life. But if life is there, scientists will have to drill down through kilometers of dense icy exterior to find it.
Kris Zacny is one of the leading contenders for the job. A roboticist at Honeybee Robotics, Zacny has been developing a drill called the SLUSH probe specifically for Europa for about 10 years. The instrument would combine a drill to break through the ice with a heat probe that would melt the ice chips, forming slush as it descends and preventing the drill from freezing in place.
“We’re kind of drilling and melting as we’re going down,” says Zacny, who has been working on drilling in mines and on oil rigs for more than 20 years and has authored several books about drilling in space and other extreme environments. The SLUSH project is partially funded by NASA, though the agency is also considering other proposals for drilling on Europa, including a cryobot developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
