NASA has launched the Europa Clipper space probe , as part of a mission to detect signs of extraterrestrial life on one of Jupiter's icy moons, Europa .
The spacecraft launched yesterday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission began with a delay due to Hurricane Milton that hit the region in the previous days.
Last week, the spacecraft was rushed indoors for protection, but after inspecting the launch site at Cape Canaveral for damage, engineers gave the green light for yesterday's launch.
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The Europa Clipper will travel 1.8 billion miles to reach the moon Europa. It's expected to arrive around 2030, but scientists believe the wait is worth it, as it could discover things that could change what we know about life in our solar system.
It is said that beneath the frozen surface of the moon there may be a vast ocean.
"If we discover life this far from the Sun, we will see a distinct origin of life compared to that on Earth," says Mark Fox-Powell, a planetary microbiologist at the Open University.
"This is extremely important, because if it exists twice in solar system, it could mean that life is very common," he says.
Europa is 628 million kilometers from Earth and is slightly larger than our moon. The icy crust of Jupiter's moon is up to 25 kilometers thick, and beneath it, there could be a vast ocean of salt water. There may also be chemicals that are the ingredients for simple life.
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Scientists first thought that Europa could support some form of life in the 1970s, when they detected water ice through a telescope.
The Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft captured the first close-up images, and then in 1995 NASA's Galileo spacecraft flew by Europa and took some interesting photos. They showed a surface riddled with dark, reddish-brown cracks, which may contain salts and sulfur compounds that could support life.
The Hubble has since taken other photos showing what appear to be water clouds erupting 160 kilometers above Europa's surface.
Now scientists hope that NASA's Europa Clipper will map almost the entire moon.
In fact, the spacecraft is equipped with a special laser tool that will see through ice. This tool has already been tested in Antarctica, and scientists hope that the conditions on the moon will not affect its operation.
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The Europa Clipper mission is just one step in NASA's long-term plan to explore this intriguing moon. In the future, a spacecraft could be sent to the surface to directly sample the icy crust and possibly access the subsurface ocean. This would provide even more valuable data and possibly confirm whether there is life on Europa.
As we continue to explore this fascinating moon, we may finally answer one of the biggest questions that has plagued us for centuries: Are we alone in the universe?
Source: www.bbc.com
