On Monday afternoon, NASA's interplanetary probe, Europa Clipper, launched to study Jupiter's fourth-largest moon, Europa, to see if it could be habitable. The probe, which is about 30 meters long, 17 meters wide and weighs six tons, is the largest spacecraft ever built by the US space agency for an interplanetary mission. Sky News.
NASA's spacecraft launched from Florida and took off from Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The start had to be postponed last week due to Hurricane Milton, which struck the American state.
The solar-powered spacecraft will carry nine scientific instruments, cover 1.8 billion miles during its roughly five-and-a-half-year journey, and is scheduled to enter Jupiter's orbit in 2030. Europa Clipper will make 49 flybys of Europa over three years and collect… Detailed measurements to study the Moon. During each flyby, the spacecraft rises above a different location to survey almost the entire Moon.
Researchers are primarily interested in the ocean filled with salt water, which, according to previous observations, lies beneath the ice mantle of Europe.
The mission's three main scientific objectives are to understand the nature of the ice shield and core ocean, and the formation and geology of the Moon. Detailed exploration of Europa helps researchers better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet
NASA said.
The mission's deputy project researcher, Bonnie Buratti, an employee at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said there is convincing evidence of the presence of life on Europa, but we have to go there to confirm it. The researcher added: “Just to reiterate: we are not a life-seeking mission. We are just looking for life conditions.”
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