Tengrinews.kz - NASA launched a spacecraft on Monday from a Florida spaceport to investigate whether conditions on Jupiter's moon, Europa, are suitable for life, focusing on the vast subsurface ocean believed to exist beneath its thick icy crust, according to ‘Voice of America’.
The Europa Clipper spacecraft took off aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center and is expected to reach Jupiter's orbit in 2030 after traveling nearly three billion kilometers over five and a half years. The launch, originally scheduled for last week, was delayed due to Hurricane Milton.
This is NASA's largest spacecraft for a planetary mission, measuring about 30 meters long and 17.5 meters wide with fully deployed antennas and solar panels, larger than a basketball court, and weighing around six tons.
"Even though Europa, the fourth-largest of Jupiter's 95 officially recognized moons, is just a quarter of Earth's diameter, its vast global ocean of salty liquid water may contain twice the water in Earth's oceans. Earth's oceans are thought to have been the birthplace for life on our planet," the report states.
Europa, with a diameter of approximately 3,100 kilometers, about 90% larger than Earth's Moon, is considered a potential habitat for life beyond Earth in our solar system.
Leaving our water world, to explore another ????@EuropaClipper launched from @NASAKennedy at 12:06pm ET (16:06 UTC) on a @SpaceX Falcon Heavy, beginning a 1.8-billion-mile journey to explore the mysteries of Europa, Jupiter’s ocean moon. pic.twitter.com/IQ7uRSviMb
— NASA (@NASA) October 14, 2024
NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free stated at a briefing that this mission will not focus on searching for living organisms but rather on identifying conditions conducive to life.
"What we discover on Europa will have profound implications for the study of astrobiology and how we view our place in the universe," Free said.
According to Sandra Connelly, Deputy Associate Administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, scientists believe that conditions suitable for life exist beneath Europa's icy surface. These include water, energy, chemistry, and stability.
The mission aims to measure the ocean and the ice layer above it, map the moon's surface composition, and search for plumes of water vapor that may escape from Europa's icy crust.
Starting in 2031, Europa Clipper is expected to perform 49 close flybys of Europa over three years, approaching its surface to within 25 kilometers. The spacecraft will operate in the intense radiation environment around Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.
Jupiter is enveloped in a magnetic field approximately 20,000 times stronger than Earth's. This magnetic field rotates, capturing and accelerating charged particles, creating radiation that can harm spacecraft. To protect sensitive electronics from this radiation, they are housed in a titanium and aluminum capsule inside Europa Clipper.
"One of the Europa Clipper mission's main challenges is delivering a spacecraft hardy enough to withstand the pummeling of radiation from Jupiter but also sensitive enough to gather the measurements needed to investigate Europa's environment," Connelly said.
The spacecraft will not travel directly to Jupiter. Instead, it will fly past Mars and then return to Earth, using the gravity of each planet to gain momentum.
