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Nasa’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, which is robotic and solar-powered, took off on Monday from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket under clear skies.
The US space agency’s launched this spacecraft from Florida to investigate whether the conditions on Jupiter’s moon Europa are suitable to support life, with a mission to focus on the large subsurface ocean that is thought to exist beneath Europa’s thick outer layer of ice.
The launch, originally scheduled for last week, was delayed due to Hurricane Milton.
When will it reach Europa
The probe was launched aboard SpaceX’s powerful Falcon Heavy rocket and is scheduled to reach Europa, one of Jupiter’s numerous moons, in approximately five and a half years.
After a journey of approximately 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion km) over 5-1/2 years, the probe is expected to enter orbit around Jupiter in 2030.
How was it built and its structure
- Nasa has built the Europa Clipper as its largest spacecraft for a planetary mission, measuring about 100 feet (30.5 meters) long and 58 feet (17.6 meters) wide when its antennas and solar arrays are fully deployed, making it larger than a basketball court.
- The spacecraft weighsapproximately 13,000 pounds (6,000 kg).
- Despite being only a quarter of Earth’s diameter, Europa, the fourth-largest of Jupiter’s 95 officially recognized moons, may contain a vast global ocean of salty liquid water that could hold twice the amount of water found in Earth’s oceans.
- With a diameter of roughly 1,940 miles (3,100 km), which is about 90% that of our moon, Europa has been considered a potential habitat for life beyond Earth within our solar system.
- Its icy shell is estimated to be 10-15 miles (15-25 km) thick, covering an ocean that is 40-100 miles (60-150 km) deep.
- The Europa Clipper mission aims to study Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, with a focus on its internal ocean, the ice layer above it, and the composition of its surface.
- The spacecraft will also search for water vapor plumes that may be emanating from Europa’s icy crust.
- Earth’s oceans are believed to be the birthplace of life on our planet.
Set to perform 49 close flybys
Over the course of three years, starting in 2031, Europa Clipper is set to perform 49 close flybys of Europa, approaching as near as “16 miles (25 kilometers)” to the moon’s surface.
Operating in the vicinity of Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, Europa Clipper will face a highly radioactive environment.
Jupiter is surrounded by a magnetic field that is approximately 20,000 times stronger than Earth’s.
This spinning magnetic field traps and accelerates charged particles, generating radiation that could potentially damage spacecraft.
To safeguard its delicate electronics from this radiation, Nasa constructed a protective vault for the Europa Clipper using titanium and aluminum.
To reach Jupiter, Nasa has equipped Europa Clipper with over 6,060 pounds (2,750 kg) of propellant.
During the launch, the spacecraft was secured inside the rocket’s protective nose cone. Rather than following a direct route to Jupiter, the spacecraft will first fly by Mars and then return to Earth, utilizing the gravitational pull of each planet to gain speed, similar to a slingshot effect.
The spacecraft’s large solar arrays, which were stowed for the launch, will collect sunlight to power its nine scientific instruments, as well as its electronics and other subsystems.
The Europa Clipper measures 30 meters (98 feet) in width when its large solar panels, designed to harness the faint light that reaches Jupiter, are fully extended.
Three essential elements for life
The Voyager probes captured the first close-up images of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, in 1979, revealing intriguing reddish lines across its surface, despite the moon’s existence being known since 1610.
In the 1990s, Nasa’s Galileo probe reached Europa and discovered strong evidence suggesting the presence of an ocean on the icy moon.
The Europa Clipper, equipped with a range of advanced instruments such as cameras, a spectrograph, radar, and a magnetometer, will study the moon’s surface structure and composition, ocean depth, and salinity, as well as the interaction between the surface and the ocean.
The mission aims to determine if the three essential elements for life – water, energy, and specific chemical compounds – are present on Europa.
If these conditions are met, primitive bacteria could potentially exist in Europa’s ocean, according to Bonnie Buratti, the mission’s deputy project scientist. However, these bacteria would likely be too deep for the Europa Clipper to detect directly.
‘Is there life?’ What the scientists saidDuring a pre-launch briefing on Sunday, Nasa Associate Administrator Jim Free said that Europa presents one of the most promising environments for potential habitability in our solar system, aside from Earth. However, he clarified that this mission will not focus on searching for any actual living organisms.
“What we discover on Europa will have profound implications for the study of astrobiology and how we view our place in the universe,” Free added.
The deputy associate administrator of Nasa’s science mission directorate, Sandra Connelly said: “Scientists believe Europa has suitable conditions below its icy surface to support life. Its conditions are water, energy, chemistry and stability.”
Nasa official Gina DiBraccio, ahead of the launch said: “With Europa Clipper, we’re not searching for life on Europa, but we’re trying to see if this ocean world is habitable, and that means we’re looking for the water.”
“We’re looking for energy sources, and we’re really looking for the chemistry there, so that we can understand what habitable environments might be throughout our whole universe,” she added.
If our solar system turns out to host two habitable worlds, Europa and Earth, “think of what that means when you extend that result to the billions and billions of other solar systems in this galaxy,” said Niebur, the Europa Clipper program scientist.
“Setting aside the ‘Is there life?’ question on Europa, just the habitability question in and of itself opens up a huge new paradigm for searching for life in the galaxy,” he added.
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