Nasa has reported that all is going to plan with its Europa Clipper mission, which launched on 14 October 2024 to study Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.
Scientists think Europa has a salty ocean beneath its icy crust, which may have existed for the entirety of our Solar System’s history – approximately four billion years.
Where there is ocean, there is often life. Europa Clipper’s mission is to find whether this internal ocean does harbour organic compounds, which are essential chemical building blocks for life.
Europa Clipper, the largest spacecraft Nasa has ever developed for a planetary mission, lifted off from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket on 14 October 2024.
Soon after launch it deployed its massive solar arrays, which will help power the spacecraft on its journey to Jupiter and during its science work in the Jovian system.
The aim is for it to arrive at Jupiter in 2030 having travelled 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometres). In 2031 it will begin a series...