NASA planned to launch on Thursday the Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter’s icy moon. Europa is one of the four Galilean moons discovered by Galileo himself. Among the other moons and even planets in our solar system, Europa is the most likely to have alien life.
Scientists speculate the presence of a global, liquid, salt-water ocean under the moon’s thick ice shell. Europa has never had a dedicated mission before, yet numerous other probes have studied the moon in passing.
The spacecraft will ride atop one of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rockets. The Falcon Heavy is essentially three Falcon 9 rockets strapped together. This launch will be the 11th flight for the Falcon Heavy family.
The craft itself is about 100 feet long, making it the largest NASA has ever built for a planetary mission. Composed of nine main instruments, Europa Clipper has a mass of about 3,200 kilograms. When the probe arrives at Jupiter in April 2030, it will begin conducting the targeted 49 flybys by the end of its mission. After a nearly 3 billion-kilometer journey, the probe’s objective is to gain a better understanding of the moon’s geology and the happenings under its surface, along with its astrobiological potential.
This mission continuously proves itself to be something the public needs to keep an eye on in the coming years. Europa Clipper could very well prove alien life to be a fact.
This information was gathered from science.nasa.gov.
