NASA has successfully launched its alien-hunting mission to Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon, which could harbor the ingredients for life.
The Clipper spacecraft lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:08 p.m. ET, tucked inside a SpaceX Falcon rocket.
The $5.2 billion probe will travel 1.8 billion miles to Europe, reaching its target in April 2030 and conducting more than 40 flybys to search for “conditions suitable for life.”
Europa has long been a leading candidate because it has an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy surface.
Gina DiBraccio, a NASA official, said: “Europe is one of the most promising places to search for life beyond Earth.”
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The Clipper spacecraft lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 ET, hidden inside a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
While the mission is not specifically looking for life, Clipper was designed to help NASA learn if Europa has the ingredients for life.
Scientists have previously determined that for a planet to have life it needs to have three main ingredients: temperatures that allow liquid water to exist; the presence of carbon-based molecules; and a contribution of energy, such as sunlight.
And NASA believes Europe has them all.
Dr. Buratti said exploratory missions like this always discover something “we couldn’t have imagined.”
“There will be something there, the unknown, that will be so wonderful that we cannot conceive of it now,” he said.
“That’s what excites me the most.”
Europa, one of Jupiter’s 95 known moons, is encased in a shell of ice estimated to be 10 to 15 miles thick or more.
Scientists believe this frozen crust hides a liquid ocean of salt water that could be 80 miles or more deep and contain about twice as much water as Earth’s oceans combined, and possibly harbor life.
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy separated from the core stage about five minutes after launch, with the first stage following shortly after.
Europa, one of Jupiter’s 95 known moons, is encased in a shell of ice estimated to be 10 to 15 miles thick or more.
NASA launched its Clipper probe on Monday. The ship soars toward Jupiter’s fourth largest moon, which is believed to host extraterrestrial life.