NASA launches space mission to Jupiter moon in search for life

Europa Clipper is headed to Jupiter’s moon, Europa, wherever an water is thought to prevarication beneath the surface.

The Europa Clipper spacecraft is connected an astir six-year, 3 cardinal kilometres (1.8b miles) ngo to larn whether conditions connected Jupiter’s satellite could prolong beingness successful what scientists judge could beryllium a heavy water hidden beneath its icy surface.

The spacecraft launched Monday aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket from a NASA installation connected Florida’s eastbound coast.

The motorboat was delayed respective days by the impacts of Hurricane Milton astatine its Florida motorboat site.

The motorboat besides came a time aft SpaceX launched its 5th Starship trial flight from Texas and returned the rocket’s booster to onshore for the archetypal time.

Europa is 1 of Jupiter’s 95 known moons, and scientists judge it could person an water that is up to 120 kilometres (80 miles) deep, hidden beneath a heavy crystal expanse covering its surface.

In 2013, the Hubble Space Telescope spotted what appeared to beryllium geysers erupting from the aboveground of Europa, which is the largest of Jupiter’s 95 known moons and was discovered by the Italian astronomer Galileo successful the aboriginal 17th century.

Now, scientists privation to get a person look astatine what could beryllium thermal vents connected the water floor. These vents could perchance enactment beingness and supply a potent vigor source.

“It’s a accidental for america to research not a satellite that mightiness person been habitable billions of years ago, but a satellite that mightiness beryllium habitable contiguous — close now,” programme idiosyncratic Curt Niebur told The Associated Press.

The Europa Clipper is equipped with monolithic star panels, making it the biggest trade built by NASA to analyse different planet. It is astir the size of a hoops tribunal and has a fund of $5.2b.

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket with a NASA spacecraft bound for Jupiter lifts disconnected from the Kennedy Space Center, October 14, 2024 successful Cape Canaveral, Fla. [AP Photo/John Raoux]

Closer look

This is not NASA’s archetypal ngo to Jupiter, but it says this is the archetypal ngo designed to behaviour a elaborate survey of Europa. The spacecraft volition alert person than erstwhile missions, wrong astir 25 kilometres (nearly 16 miles).

After orbiting Jupiter, it volition marque 49 adjacent flybys of Europa earlier ending the ngo successful 2034 with a planned clang into Ganymede, different of Jupiter’s moons.

In the 1970s, the Pioneer spacecraft and 2 Voyager missions provided the archetypal elaborate photos of Europa from a distance.

Since then, NASA’s Galileo and Juno spacecraft person besides travel adjacent capable to seizure images of the moon.

The spacecraft carries 9 subject instruments, including radar to spot beneath the ice, and cameras that volition representation virtually the full moon.

Among the challenges the Clipper faces to scope Europa is passing done Jupiter’s bands of radiation, which requires peculiar extortion for its instrumentality controls, which are cased successful heavy aluminum and zinc walls.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Juice spacecraft, launched past year, is besides headed to Jupiter.

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Al Jazeera and quality agencies