A massive NASA spacecraft is ready to set sail for Jupiter and its moon Europa. The craft named Europa Clipper will peer beneath the moon's icy crust and determine whether conditions there could support life. Scientists are pretty sure there's a vast hidden ocean at Europa, making the moon one of the best bets for finding life beyond Earth.
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“It’s a chance for us to explore not a world that might have been habitable billions of years ago, but a world that might be habitable today — right now,” said program scientist Curt Niebur. Its massive solar panels make Clipper the biggest craft built by NASA to investigate another planet. It will take 5 1/2 years to reach Jupiter and will sneak within 16 miles of Europa’s surface — considerably closer than any other spacecraft.
Liftoff is targeted for this month aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. Mission cost: $5.2 billion.One of Jupiter’s 95 known moons, Europa is almost the size of our own moon. It’s encased in an ice sheet estimated to be 10 miles to 15 miles or more thick. Scientists believe this frozen crust hides an ocean that could be 80 miles or more deep. The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted what appear to be geysers erupting from the surface.
Earlier this year, NASA was in a panic that the spacecraft’s many transistors might not withstand the intense radiation. But after months of analysis, engineers concluded the mission could proceed as planned.NASA’s twin Pioneer spacecraft and then two Voyagers swept past Jupiter in the 1970s. The Voyagers provided the first detailed photos of Europa but from quite a distance. NASA’s Galileo spacecraft had repeated flybys of the moon during the 1990s, passing as close as 124 miles .
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