NASA Launches Historic Mission To Explore Jupiter’s Moon Europa

NASA has successfully launched a spacecraft on a historic mission to find out whether Jupiter’s moon Europa has conditions suitable for life. Europa Clipper, the largest spacecraft the US space agency ever built for a mission headed to another planet, is also the first NASA mission dedicated to studying an ocean world beyond Earth.

The spacecraft will travel 2.9 billion kilometers and is expected to reach Jupiter in 2030. The main goal of the mission is to determine whether Europa has conditions that could support life. Evidence indicates that under Europa’s ice lies an enormous, salty ocean with more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. "If the mission determines Europa is habitable, it may mean there are more habitable worlds in our solar system and beyond than imagined," wrote NASA in a statement.

In praise of mystery ✨

After a successful launch aboard a @SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from @NASAKennedy, @EuropaClipper is on its way from our ocean world to another to see if Jupiter's moon Europa has conditions suitable for life: https://t.co/nfI8RjiAuQ pic.twitter.com/rLJdUg7VHk

— NASA (@NASA) October 14, 2024

Coming as close as 25 kilometers to the surface, the spacecraft is equipped with instruments including an ice-penetrating radar, cameras, and a thermal instrument to look for areas of warmer ice and any recent eruptions of water. Moreover, the Europa Clipper also carries the largest solar arrays NASA has ever used for an interplanetary mission. At the same time, the European Space Agency’s Juice spacecraft, which was launched in April last year, is also headed to Jupiter to explore the planet and three of its icy moons, including Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede.