NASA will launch a spacecraft toward Europa on Monday as part of a six-year mission to study Jupiter’s moon, which the space agency believes could be one of the “most promising places” to support life in the solar system.
Key data
NASA will launch the Europa Clipper spacecraft, equipped on top of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 12:06 p.m. EDT.
The event will be streamed live on NASA’s website starting at 11 a.m., with an additional broadcast on the agency’s Channel X.
NASA estimates that Europa Clipper will travel 1.8 billion miles and enter Jupiter’s orbit on April 11, 2030, after which the spacecraft will conduct 49 flybys of Europa over four years.
During its trip, NASA will study whether there are places beneath Europa’s surface that “could support life”: Europa Clipper will measure the depth of Europa’s ocean and take thermal images of the moon to determine where the ice is thinnest and where the ocean is closer to the surface.
Crucial ideals
Robert Pappalardo, Europa Clipper project scientist, told the New York Times that Europa is “certainly the most likely place for life beyond Earth in our solar system” because the moon is “the most likely to have the ingredients for life in abundance and that there is enough time for life to get going.”
What to take into account
According to NASA, which has a deadline of November 6 to launch the Europa Clipper, there is a 95% chance that the weather will be favorable for Monday’s launch. There are other opportunities to launch the spacecraft on Tuesday or Wednesday if necessary, the agency said.
Surprising fact
Weighing approximately 5,700 kilograms and with solar panels stretching more than 30 meters, Europa Clipper is the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built by NASA, according to the agency. The spacecraft is also equipped with several cameras, spectrometers (which measure wavelengths), as well as a magnetometer and radar.
big number
5.2 billion dollars. That’s the amount NASA spent to develop and build the Europa Clipper spacecraft.
Key background
Europa is the smallest of the four largest moons orbiting Jupiter and is the sixth closest to the planet, which has 79 moons, according to NASA. First discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610, NASA began studying Europa in the 1970s and discovered that the moon could have the potential to have habitable environments. The moon has a very thin atmosphere that is mostly made up of oxygen, and scientists believe there is a saltwater ocean hidden beneath Europa’s surface. Europa could have all the “ingredients” to support life, according to NASA, including water, organic “building blocks,” surface radiation and planetary stability.
This article was originally published in Forbes US
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