NASA launched a rocket to the moon on Monday, but this particular moon will take nearly six years to reach. The spacecraft known as Europa Clipper took off for the Jupiter moon of Europa and is scheduled to arrive in 2030, reports Space.com. Once the journey is complete, the spacecraft will begin its real work—assessing the ocean beneath the planet's icy surface to see whether it might be able to support life.
- The right stuff? "Europa could have all the ingredients for life as we know it," NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free told reporters, per NPR. "Water, organics, chemical energy and stability. What we discover at Europa will have profound implications for the study of astrobiology and how we view our place in the universe."
- Three goals: An explainer at NASA notes that this is not a "life-detection mission," and the AP notes the craft doesn't have "life detectors." The $5 billion mission's "three main science objectives are to determine the thickness of the moon's icy shell and its interactions with the ocean below, to investigate its composition, and to characterize its geology," says the space agency.
- Clipper: The craft, equipped with nine instruments, is roughly the size of a basketball court when its wings are unfurled, per the AP. It will circle Jupiter every 21 days and come within 16 miles of the moon at its closest point. The mission is scheduled to end in 2034, with the craft destined to crash-land on Ganymede, another moon of Jupiter.
- Milestone: "Clipper is the first NASA spacecraft dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth," says Free. NASA's Gina DiBraccio emphasized the importance of that: "Ocean worlds like Europa are not only unique because they might be habitable, but they might be habitable today."
(Europa
might glow in the dark, which might not sound unusual to a layman but means a lot to astronomers.)
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