Written by Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is scheduled to launch a spacecraft to Jupiter’s moon Europa, considered one of the most promising locations in our solar system, to search for life beyond Earth, to find out if this ice-covered world, which is believed to contain an ocean. Vast underground space suitable for life. .
NASA’s solar-powered robotic Europa Clipper spacecraft will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, carrying nine scientific instruments. After traveling 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) in a journey that will take about five and a half years, Europa Clipper is scheduled to enter orbit around Jupiter in 2030.
After a delay caused by Hurricane Milton, NASA has set a tentative launch date for 12:06 PM ET (1606 GMT) on Monday.
Scientists have a keen interest in the salty liquid ocean water that previous observations have suggested exists beneath Europe’s icy crust.
“There is very strong evidence that the ingredients for life exist on Europa,” said planetary scientist Bonnie Buratti of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and deputy project scientist for the mission. “But we have to go there to find out.”
“Just to reiterate: we are not a life detection mission,” Buratti added. “We are only looking for life conditions.”
Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft ever built by NASA for a planetary mission, measuring about 100 feet (30.5 m) long, about 58 feet (17.6 m) wide, and weighing about 13,000 pounds (6,000 kg). It is larger than a basketball court due to its large solar arrays that collect sunlight to power scientific instruments, electronics and their other subsystems.
The spacecraft is scheduled to fly by Mars, then return to Earth, using each planet’s gravity to increase its momentum like a slingshot. It has three main scientific goals: measuring the thickness of Europa’s outer layer of ice and its interactions with the subsurface below, knowing the moon’s composition, and determining its geology.
NASA plans its spacecraft to make 49 flybys of Europa over three years.
Europa is about 1,940 miles (3,100 km) in diameter at its equator, roughly 90% of the diameter of our Moon. Europe’s ice crust is currently thought to be 10-15 miles (15-25 km) thick, floating on an ocean 40-100 miles (60-150 km) deep.
Ocean world
This moon is considered the “ocean world.” Although Europa is only a quarter of Earth’s diameter, its subsurface ocean may contain twice as much water as Earth’s oceans.
“As an ocean world, Europa is very interesting. This mission will help us understand a complex part of our solar system,” said Gina DiBraccio, acting director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division.
Ocean worlds may be a common type of object outside our solar system, DiBraccio said.
“Clipper will be the first in-depth mission that will allow us to determine habitability on what could be the most common type of inhabited world on our universe,” DiBraccio said.
Despite its cold and hostile surface, scientists believe Europa could be able to nurture life. Buratti noted that there are three main requirements for life to form: liquid water, a certain chemistry – specifically organic compounds that can serve as food for any primitive organisms – and an energy source.
Europe receives only about 4% of the solar radiation that Earth receives – five times closer to the sun. But Buratti pointed out that Europa flexes as its orbit gets closer and closer to Jupiter, thanks to the massive planet’s strong gravity, a process that produces heat on the moon.
“This is the energy source we have,” Buratti said.
At the bottom of Europa’s ocean, where water meets the rocky mantle, there may be thermal vents where heat releases chemical energy.
“It may be similar to thermal vents found deep in Earth’s oceans where primitive life existed and where life may have originated on Earth,” Buratti said.
The spacecraft’s MASPEX instrument will sample gases to study the chemistry of Europa’s ocean, surface and atmosphere. Buratti added that MASPEX will search for “advanced organic molecules that could provide food, if there were any primitive organisms.”
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. Of its 95 officially recognized moons, Europa is the fourth largest, behind Ganymede, Callisto, and Io. Europa orbits about 417,000 miles (671,000 km) from Jupiter.
Buratti said exploratory missions like this always reveal something “we could never have imagined.”
“There will be something – the unknown – that will be so wonderful that we cannot imagine it now,” Buratti said. “This is the thing that excites me the most.”
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