October 14, 2024 – The long-awaited Europa Clipper spacecraft launched this morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Mounted atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, this thing is certainly leaping giants forward in a very intriguing interest to a moon of our solar system, namely, Jupiter’s Europa.
The Europa Clipper mission would determine the habitability of this moon as scientists suspect harbors a large ocean beneath its icy surface; it might have more than twice the quantity of water as Earth and is the first target candidate for finding life beyond Earth.
It will undergo systematic observations on the icy crust covering Europa and its ocean beneath, in a very comprehensive manner that could provide crucial information regarding the environment on the moon and whether or not it may harbor life.
It will carry a set of scientific instruments to analyze the ice shell of the moon, subsurface ocean, and composition at the surface. The space shuttle will travel a distance of 1.8 billion miles over the next 5.5 years and is projected to reach Jupiter in 2030. The Europa Clipper will then conduct nearly 50 close flybys of Europa, passing within hundreds of miles of the moon’s surface to gather highly detailed data.
The mission will measure Europa’s icy crust thickness, determine the depth and salinity of its ocean, and seek signs of water vapor plumes at its surface or emerging from it. If they exist, these plumes might directly indicate what’s going on below that ice, providing even greater reasons why Europa’s ocean is considered potentially habitable.
Although the Europa Clipper is not meant to search for life, what scientists will have learned from its mission will be incredibly useful for future missions that are actually seeking biological signatures. Scientists would like to get a better understanding of why the environment on Europa is considered potentially habitable and improve their search for life beyond Earth through the study of Europa’s environment.
It is the very first time that NASA will be sending a mission to the outer solar system, following in the wake of missions that came before to Mars and the outer planets. The outcomes of Europa Clipper may fundamentally change the view that humanity has concerning where life could exist within our solar system and beyond.
