NASA’s New Edition of Graphic Novel Features Europa Clipper

NASA has released a new edition of Issue 4 of the Astrobiology Graphic History series. The issue now includes NASA’s Europa Clipper mission.

Nov 2, 2024 - 08:00

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NASA’s New Edition of Graphic Novel Features Europa Clipper

The left part of the image shows the cover of Issue 4. The title reads

A new edition of Issue #4 of Astrobiology: The Story of our Search for Life in the Universe has been released to include the NASA Europa Clipper mission.

NASA Astrobiology/Aaron Gronstal

To celebrate the successful launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, the agency’s Astrobiology program has released a new edition of Issue #4 – Missions to the Outer Solar System – of its graphic history series Astrobiology: The Story of our Search for Life in the Universe.

Issue #4 tells the story of the outer solar system, from beyond the asteroid belt to the outer reaches of the Sun’s magnetic influence. Gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn are not habitable, but many of their moons raise questions about life’s potential far, far away from the warmth of the Sun.

One such body is Jupiter’s moon Europa, which contains an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy surface. The Europa Clipper mission is designed to help scientists understand whether this ocean holds key ingredients that could support habitable environments for life as we know it. The spacecraft launched on Oct. 14 and will arrive at Jupiter in 2030.

Additional content in the fourth edition of Issue #4 also includes ESA’s (European Space Agency) Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) mission, which will arrive in the Jovian system in 2031 and collect data on many of Jupiter’s moons, including Ganymede, Europa, Callisto, and Io, that is complementary to Europa Clipper’s investigation.

Read more about how astrobiologists study the potential for life on worlds like Europa and the exciting data that Europa Clipper will gather by visiting NASA’s Astrobiology website and downloading the new edition.

Digital wallpaper for phones, desktops, or meeting backgrounds that feature the new Europa Clipper artwork from Issue #4 are also available.

In the style of comic art, Europa clipper flies toward Europa, which appears as a quarter circle in close-up in the bottom left. A cutaway of the moon's surface reveals it's icy shell and an ocean beneath. Hydrothermal vents are visible. An altered image of Jupiter looms large in the background.

This wallpaper image featuring NASA’s Europa Clipper mission uses artwork from Issue #4 of the astrobiology graphic history series, Astrobiology: The Story of our Search for Life in the Universe. The image of Jupiter in the background is adapted from imagery taken by NASA’s Juno Mission (Exotic Marble, 2019, NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Prateek Sarpal/©CCNCSA)

NASA Astrobiology/Aaron Gronstal

For more information on NASA’s Astrobiology program, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/astrobiology

-end-

Karen Fox / Molly Wasser

Headquarters, Washington

202-358-1600

karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov