Hundreds of millions of miles from Earth, orbiting the gas giant Jupiter, scientists believe the moon called Europa is home to an ocean world. This week, NASA sent spacecraft on a journey to that moon.
This craft – the Europa Clipper – is the largest that NASA has ever built for a mission headed to another planet. It spans 100 feet from end to end and with its propellant loaded, it weighs about 13,000 pounds.
According to NASA, the Europa Clipper is also the first craft designed to study an ocean beyond Earth and more than 4,000 people have contributed to the mission since 2015. After years of planning, the craft launched just after noon ET Monday aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and is expected to travel 1.8 billion miles.
“The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Europa has conditions that could support life. Europa is about the size of our own Moon, but its interior is different,” NASA explained. “Information from NASA’s Galileo mission in the 1990s showed strong evidence that under Europa’s ice lies an enormous, salty ocean with more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. Scientists also have found evidence that Europa may host organic compounds and energy sources under its surface.”
Europa is the fourth largest of Jupiter’s 95 moons and it is the sixth closest to the planet. It was discovered in 1610 and was named by German astronomer Simon Marius in 1614. Size-wise, it’s just a bit smaller than our own moon. Jupiter is the oldest and largest planet in our solar system.
Last year, astronomers used data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to identify carbon dioxide in a specific region on Europa’s surface. That discovery adds to the questions swirling about whether Europa could sustain life. If the Europa Clipper mission finds that the moon is habitable, NASA said it may indicate that there are even more habitable worlds in our solar system than we previously imagined.
As of this year, scientists have also been researching the possibility of finding water on Mars and on a mysterious “dwarf planet” located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, per Audacy reports.
“We could not be more excited for the incredible and unprecedented science NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will deliver in the generations to come,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, of the Europa Clipper launch. “Everything in NASA science is interconnected, and Europa Clipper’s scientific discoveries will build upon the legacy that our other missions exploring Jupiter – including Juno, Galileo, and Voyager – created in our search for habitable worlds beyond our home planet.”
About five minutes after it launched Monday, the SpaceX rocket’s nose cone opened to reveal the Europa Clipper. Around an hour after takeoff the spacecraft separated from the rocket and ground controllers received s signal soon after. By 1:13 p.m., two-way communication was established with NASA’s Deep Space Network facility in Canberra, Australia.
First, the Europa Clipper will make a four-month trip to Mars before going back to Earth for a “gravity assist flyby” in 2026. Four years later, in 2030, the craft is expected to begin orbiting Europa and is scheduled to fly past the moon 49 times. Eventually, it is expected to get as close as 16 miles from the surface of Europa.
To investigate the moon’s icy shell, atmosphere and interior, the clipper is equipped with nine science instruments and a gravity experiment. These include ice-penetrating radar, cameras, and a thermal instrument to look for areas of warmer ice and any recent eruptions of water, NASA said. Overall, it is “the most sophisticated suite of science instruments,” that NASA has ever sent to Jupiter, the space agency added.
With the tools, NASA hopes to determine how thick Europa’s shell is, how it interacts with oceans below it as well as to learn more about its composition and its geology. Then, it hopes to apply these findings to better ‘understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet.”
“As Europa Clipper embarks on its journey, I’ll be thinking about the countless hours of dedication, innovation, and teamwork that made this moment possible,” said Jordan Evans, project manager, NASA JPL. “This launch isn’t just the next chapter in our exploration of the solar system; it’s a leap toward uncovering the mysteries of another ocean world, driven by our shared curiosity and continued search to answer the question, ‘are we alone?’”