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NASA spacecraft to study whether Jupiter’s moon Europa can harbor life
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – NASA is set to launch a spacecraft to Jupiter’s moon Europa, considered one of our solar system’s most promising spots to search for life beyond Earth, to learn whether this ice-encased world believed to harbor a vast underground ocean is habitable.
The U.S. space agency’s robotic solar-powered Europa Clipper spacecraft will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, carrying nine scientific instruments. After traveling 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion km) in a trip lasting about 5-1/2 years, Europa Clipper is due to enter orbit around Jupiter in 2030.
After a delay caused by Hurricane Milton, NASA set a tentative launch time for 12:06 p.m. ET (1606 GMT) on Monday.
Scientists have a keen interest in the salty liquid water ocean that previous observations have indicated resides below Europa’s icy shell.
“There is very strong evidence that the ingredients for life exist on Europa. But we have to go there to find out,” said planetary scientist Bonnie Buratti of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the mission’s deputy project scientist.
“Just to emphasize: we’re not a life-detection mission. We’re just looking for the conditions for life,” Buratti added.
Europa Clipper is the biggest spacecraft NASA has ever built for a planetary mission, measuring about 100 feet (30.5 meters) long, about 58 feet (17.6 meters) wide and weighing approximately 13,000 pounds (6,000 kg). It is larger than a basketball court because of its sizable solar arrays to gather sunlight for powering scientific instruments, electronics and its other subsystems.
The spacecraft is due to fly by Mars, then back by Earth, using the gravity of each planet to increase its momentum like a slingshot. It has three main science objectives: gauging the thickness of Europa’s outer layer of ice and its interactions with the subsurface below, figuring out the moon’s composition, and determining its geology.
NASA is planning for its spacecraft to conduct 49 close flybys of Europa over a span of three years.
Europa’s diameter is about 1,940 miles (3,100 km) at its equator, roughly 90% that of our moon. Europa’s icy shell is currently believed to be 10-15 miles (15-25 km) thick, floating atop an ocean 40-100 miles (60-150 km) deep.
AN OCEAN WORLD
This moon is considered an “ocean world.” Even though Europa is just a quarter of Earth’s diameter, its subsurface ocean may contain twice the water in Earth’s oceans.
“As an ocean world, Europa is very intriguing. And this mission is going to help us to understand a complex piece of our solar system,” said Gina DiBraccio, acting director of NASA’s planetary science division.
Ocean worlds, DiBraccio said, might be a common type of body outside our solar system.
“Clipper is going to be the first in-depth mission that will allow us to characterize habitability on what could be the most common type of inhabited world in our universe,” DiBraccio said.
Despite its hostile and frigid surface, scientists believe Europa could be capable of nurturing life. Buratti noted that there are three main requirements for life to form: liquid water, certain chemistry – specifically organic compounds that could serve as food for any primitive organisms – and an energy source.
Europa receives only about 4% of the solar radiation that Earth – five times closer to the sun – gets. But Buratti noted that Europa flexes as its orbit comes nearer and farther from Jupiter, thanks to the huge planet’s strong gravitational pull – a process that produces heat on the moon.
“That’s the source of energy we have,” Buratti said.
At the bottom of Europa’s ocean, where the water meets the rocky mantle, there may be thermal vents where heat releases chemical energy.
“They may be similar to thermal vents in the deep oceans of the Earth where primitive life exists and where life may have originated on the Earth,” Buratti said.
The spacecraft’s MASPEX instrument will sample gases to study Europa’s ocean, surface and atmospheric chemistries. MASPEX will look for “sophisticated organic molecules that could provide the food, if there are any primitive organisms,” Buratti added.
Jupiter is our solar system’s largest planet. Among its 95 officially recognized moons, Europa is fourth largest, behind Ganymede, Callisto and Io. Europa orbits about 417,000 miles (671,000 km) from Jupiter.
Buratti said exploratory missions like this one always uncover something “that we could not have imagined.”
“There is going to be something there – the unknown – that is going to be so wonderful that we can’t conceive of it right now,” Buratti said. “That’s the thing that excites me most.”
(Corrects figures in headline)
By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris held a marginal 3-percentage-point lead over Republican Donald Trump – 45% to 42% – as the two stayed locked in a tight race to win the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.
Harris also held a 3-percentage-point lead among likely voters, who supported her 47% to 44%. The poll had a margin of error of around 4 percentage points.
While the gap between the two remained steady compared with a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted a week earlier, the new poll, which closed on Sunday, gave signs that voters – particularly Democrats – might be more enthused about this year’s election than they were ahead of the November 2020 presidential election when Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump.
Some 78% of registered voters in the three-day poll – including 86% of Democrats and 81% of Republicans – said they were “completely certain” they would cast a ballot in the presidential election. The share of sure-to-vote poll respondents was up from 74% in a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted Oct. 23-27, 2020, when 74% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans said they were certain to cast ballots.
Harris appears to be drawing strength from voters picking her as the better candidate for healthcare policy and for handling political extremism, although voters also rate the U.S. economy as the top issue in the election and said Trump was the better economic steward, according to the new poll.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 938 U.S. adults online, nationwide, including 807 registered voters. Among these, 769 were considered the most likely to turn out on Election Day.
Stock Markets
BioNJ & Medidata Collaborate to Address Underrepresentation in Clinical Trials Across New Jersey
TRENTON, N.J., Oct. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — In a groundbreaking effort to support the recruitment of underrepresented communities in clinical trials across the United States, BioNJ, the life sciences trade association for New Jersey, has engaged Medidata, a Dassault Systèmes brand and the leading provider of clinical trial solutions to the life sciences industry, to evaluate the demographic representation in trials conducted within New Jersey.
The study analyzed New Jersey’s recruitment performance by comparing it with similar northeastern states ” Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York ” based on comparable demographic, infrastructural and geographical factors. The goal is to provide insights regarding how effectively clinical trial sponsors are achieving ideal demographic representation among participants.
The findings, detailed in a newly published whitepaper entitled “Health Equity in Clinical Trials: New Jersey Participant Demographics,” highlights differences in demographic recruitment across these states and identifies key public policy opportunities to pursue more accurate demographic representation according to epidemiological data.
“By determining recruitment disparities and offering solutions for improvement, our hope is that our recommendations within the whitepaper will help to ensure that clinical trials better reflect the populations they aim to serve,” said BioNJ’s President and CEO Debbie Hart. “This is crucial for advancing healthcare equity and ensuring that therapeutics are accurately assessed for every community.”
The release of “Health Equity in Clinical Trials: New Jersey Participant Demographics” is a key milestone in BioNJ’s Health Equity in Clinical Trials Initiative, launched in 2022. Driven by a commitment to the vision of “Health Equity for All”, BioNJ’s Health Equity in Clinical Trials Initiative was created to define concrete issues that can be remedied with impact, identify long-term interventions, support companies to improve equity and access in their clinical trials strategies, benchmark best practices and shape policy.
Clinical trials are the source of every new therapy. They represent a $15.2 billion enterprise in the U.S. alone. Yet for all the promise they represent ” and investment they attract “ substantial inequities in clinical trial enrollment limit the benefits to society at large, especially for people from historically marginalized groups that are underrepresented in clinical research.
Therefore, the ultimate objective of the BioNJ-Medidata collaboration is to empower recruitment efforts so that every demographic has equal access to the latest biomedical breakthroughs, and that new therapies are accurately evaluated based on their outcomes within the communities they are designed to treat.
Click here to download a copy of “Health Equity in Clinical Trials: New Jersey Participant Demographics”.
Join BioNJ and Medidata on November 7 from 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. as they present the findings live from “Health Equity in Clinical Trials: New Jersey Participant Demographics”. Click here to register for free.
For more information, contact:
Randi Bromberg
Sr. Vice President, Communications & Marketing
609-890-3158 (O)
609-955-1067 (C)
About BioNJ
BioNJ is the life sciences trade association for New Jersey, representing 400 research-based life sciences organizations across the healthcare ecosystem from the largest biopharmaceutical companies to early-stage start-ups for more than 30 years. Because Patients Can’t Wait ®, BioNJ is dedicated to ensuring a vibrant ecosystem where Science is Supported, Companies are Created, Drugs are Developed and Patients Have Access to Lifesaving Medicines.
Recognized as a respected thought leader, an influential advocate and a sought-after convener of the life sciences industry, BioNJ works directly with legislative leaders in both Trenton and Washington D.C. to advance the life sciences industry, foster medical innovation and ensure health equity and healthcare affordability. With innovation as the driving force behind medical breakthroughs, BioNJ’s mission is to help our Members help Patients by providing transformative resources, including access to government and industry leaders, capital and State incentives, timely educational programs, skilled talent and a value-driven purchasing program.
BioNJ is inspired by and privileged to work with those committed to improving the lives of Patients and their families around the world. Visit www.BioNJ.org for more information and follow us at @BioNJ.
About Medidata
Medidata is powering smarter treatments and healthier people through digital solutions to support clinical trials. Celebrating 25 years of ground-breaking technological innovation across more than 34,000 trials and 10 million patients, Medidata offers industry-leading expertise, analytics-powered insights, and the largest patient-level historical clinical trial data set in the world. More than 1 million registered users across approximately 2,200 customers trust Medidata’s seamless, end-to-end platform to improve patient experiences, accelerate clinical breakthroughs, and bring therapies to market faster. A Dassault Systèmes brand (Euronext Paris: FR0014003TT8, DSY.PA), Medidata is headquartered in New York City and has been recognized as a Leader by Everest Group and IDC. Discover more at www.medidata.com and follow us @Medidata.
ST. LOUIS, MO – Benson Hill, Inc. (NASDAQ:BHIL) announced the departure of J. Stephan Dolezalek from its Board of Directors, effective Sunday. According to the company’s recent SEC filing, Dolezalek’s resignation was not due to any disagreements with the company’s operations, policies, or practices.
Dolezalek, whose contributions to the board were acknowledged by Benson Hill, has not cited a specific reason for his resignation. The company expressed its gratitude for his service and the role he played during his tenure.
Benson Hill, based in St. Louis, operates within the food and kindred products industry and is recognized for its focus on plant-based technology to develop sustainable food solutions.
This update is based on an official statement provided by Benson Hill in a recent SEC filing, ensuring the information is accurate and transparent for stakeholders.
In other recent news, Benson Hill, Inc., a food and kindred products company, has terminated its exclusive agreement with Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (NYSE:) and entered into a new non-exclusive seed supply contract. This new arrangement allows Benson Hill to potentially commercialize and sell certain proprietary high-protein soybean seed varieties.
Furthermore, Benson Hill has initiated a strategic measure by executing a reverse stock split at a 1-for-35 ratio, reducing the total number of outstanding shares from approximately 213 million to around 6 million, while leaving relative voting power and business operations unchanged.
In addition, Benson Hill has been exploring strategic alternatives, including a potential sale, following a preliminary indication of interest from Argonautic Ventures Master SPC and other co-investors. The board of directors at Benson Hill has formed a special committee to review these alternatives, executing a non-binding letter of intent with Argonautic, outlining the terms of a possible acquisition.
These recent developments highlight the company’s ongoing efforts to expand its market reach and diversify its partnerships within the agricultural sector. The termination of its exclusive ADM agreement and the new seed supply contract, combined with the exploration of strategic alternatives and the execution of a reverse stock split, indicate a significant shift in Benson Hill’s business strategy.
InvestingPro Insights
As Benson Hill, Inc. (NASDAQ:BHIL) navigates this change in its board composition, InvestingPro data provides additional context to the company’s financial situation. Despite a significant revenue growth of 55.33% in the last twelve months as of Q2 2024, the company faces several challenges. InvestingPro Tips highlight that Benson Hill operates with a significant debt burden and may have trouble making interest payments on its debt. This financial strain is further evidenced by the company’s negative operating income of -$65.52 million over the same period.
The company’s gross profit margin stands at a low 4.85%, which aligns with the InvestingPro Tip indicating that Benson Hill suffers from weak gross profit margins. This could be a critical factor as the company strives to improve its financial health in the competitive food technology sector.
On a more positive note, Benson Hill’s stock has shown some resilience with a 13.27% year-to-date price total return. However, investors should be aware that the stock price movements are quite volatile, according to another InvestingPro Tip.
For those interested in a deeper analysis, InvestingPro offers 13 additional tips that could provide valuable insights into Benson Hill’s financial outlook and market position.
This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.
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