A NASA spacecraft took off Monday on a mission to explore Jupiter’s tantalizing moon Europa and reveal whether its vast hidden ocean could hold the keys to life.
will take Europa Clipper is five and a half years away from reaching Jupiter where it will enter orbit around the giant gas planet and sneak up on Europa during dozens of radiation-soaked flybys.
Scientists are almost certain that a deep global ocean exists beneath Europa’s icy crust. And where there’s water, there could be life, making the Moon one of the most promising places to look for it.
Europa Clipper will not seek life; It does not have life detectors. Instead, the spacecraft will focus on the ingredients needed to support life, searching for organic compounds and other clues as it searches for suitable conditions beneath the ice.
“Ocean worlds like Europa are not only unique because they could be habitable, but they could be habitable today,” NASA’s Gina DiBraccio said on the eve of the launch.
SpaceX started Clipper at 1.8 million miles (3 billion kilometers), launching the spacecraft on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.
He $5.2 billion mission It was almost derailed by the transistors.
NASA didn’t learn until the spring that Clipper’s transistors might be more vulnerable to Jupiter’s intense radiation field than anticipated. Clipper will support the equivalent of several million chest X-rays during each of the 49 flybys of Europe. The space agency spent months reviewing everything before concluding in September that the mission could go ahead as planned.
Hurricane Milton increased anxiety and delayed the launch by several days.
About the size of a basketball court with its solar wings spread, Clipper will pass Mars and then Earth on its way to Jupiter for gravitational assistance. The nearly 13,000-pound (5,700-kilogram) probe should reach the solar system’s largest planet in 2030.
Clipper will orbit Jupiter every 21 days. One of those days will bring it closer to Europa, one of Jupiter’s 95 known moons and close in size to our moon.
The spacecraft will fly as low as 16 miles (25 kilometers) above Europa, much closer than the few previous visitors. The onboard radar will attempt to penetrate the moon’s ice shell, which is believed to be 10 to 15 miles or more (15 to 24 kilometers) thick. The ocean below could be 80 miles (120 kilometers) or more deep.
The spacecraft contains nine instruments, with their sensitive electronic components stored in a vault with dense zinc and aluminum walls to protect them from radiation. The exploration will last until 2034.
If conditions are found to be favorable for life on Europa, it opens up the possibility of life on other ocean worlds in our solar system and beyond, according to scientists. With an underground ocean and geysers, Saturn’s moon Enceladus is another top candidate.
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