Illustration of NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft
NASA/JPL-Caltech
The largest spacecraft NASA has ever built for an interplanetary mission will take off today to find out if Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, has an environment that could support life.
The Europa Clipper mission is expected to launch at 12:06 p.m. a SpaceX The heavy rocket Falcon Heavy lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, which has been delayed several days as a precaution. Hurricane Milton.
Europa is the smallest of the so-called Galilean moons, the four largest of Jupiter’s moons. is slightly smaller than our moon and it is of particular interest to scientists. Previous observations have indicated that Europe it has a vast subterranean oceanand this mission is designed to explore the possibility that life might exist within it.
With the solar arrays deployed, the Europa Clipper is more than 30 meters long and weighs 3241 kilograms without propulsion, which will add another 2750 kilograms.
It will take the spacecraft about six years to travel the 2.9 billion kilometers to its rendezvous point Jupiter In April 2030, using the gravity of Mars and then Earth to increase its speed.
On reaching Jupiter, it will enter an elliptical orbit and make a series of 49 close flybys of Europa. Orbiting directly around the Moon would place it in Jupiter’s dangerously large radiation fields, so this flight path reduces exposure to one day per plane, minimizing the chance of damage.
NASA has also included a 150-pound shield made of titanium and aluminum to protect the electronics from radiation.
Each flight will take the Europa Clipper to within about 25 kilometers of Earth’s surface, and each time it will examine a different section. The spacecraft is carrying nine scientific instruments that will take high-resolution images of the surface, measure Europa’s magnetic fields, collect data in the infrared and ultraviolet spectra and build a radar map.
Scientists working on the project say The New Scientist Europa Clipper aims to investigate whether the moon has an environment where life could exist, rather than looking for life itself. But even then, there’s a slim chance Europa, if life exists, could be detected by the spacecraft’s Surface Dust Analyzer, which is designed to pick up organic matter sprayed into space by small meteorite impacts on the moon’s surface.
Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope have recently shown There is carbon dioxide on Europa’s surfacewhich may indicate the conditions that may exist beneath its frozen shell. The Europa Clipper mission will help scientists better understand the nature of this shell and the ocean it covers.
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