Marco Polo, Laplace and Tandem, next European missions to space

ESA’s Space Science Advisory Committee met last week in Paris to analyze fifty research proposals submitted by the scientific community that will mark theEuropean activity in space in the period 2015-2025. Among those selected isLaplace, a mission to study Jupiter and its moons, and specifically Europa, which scientists suspect hides an ocean between its geodynamically active icy crust and its silicate mantle. The objective will be to elucidate if there is or was at some point life in this satellite.

ESA has also proposed sending new instruments to two satellites of Saturn, Titan and Encelade, in order to know their astrobiological potential, in a mission calledTandem. Furthermore, in Paris European astronomers spoke ofMarco Polo, a probe destined for an asteroid that would collect and bring to Earth a sample to answer essential questions such as the birth and evolution of the Solar System, the role of minor bodies (asteroids and comets) in this process, and the origins of the Earth and life.

Other future bets of the special agency areDish, a new extrasolar planet finder based on photometric techniques;Spica, the infrared observatory that will investigate the origin of the universe and the formation of planets, in alliance with the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA); orDune, for the exploration of dark matter and dark energy.

“The maturity of most of the proposals received demonstrates the excellence of the European scientific community,” declared German expert Tilman Spohn after the meeting. And he predicted that “thenext decadeit will be veryexcitingfor thescientific exploration of space”

ESA (www.esa.int)