The Europa Clipper has unfurled its solar panels and is on its way to Jupiter, but it's taking a circuitous route by way of Mars. The launch itself we

Europa Clipper heads to Jupiter: Can its icy moon support life?

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2024-10-19 11:00:05

The Europa Clipper has unfurled its solar panels and is on its way to Jupiter, but it's taking a circuitous route by way of Mars.

The launch itself went off without a hitch, much to the relief of the assembled scientists, engineers, and mission specialists. Millions of hours of work could have been blotted out in an instant if the Falcon Heavy hadn't kept its 100 percent success rate.

"It's highly stressful, I never enjoy the launches," Dr Sascha Kempf, principal investigator for one of the nine instruments on board, told The Register. Kempf has spent the last 20 years on the team and is acutely aware that all that time could be in vain.

This is NASA's largest and best equipped interplanetary probe yet. Even with the initial boost from Falcon Heavy's thrusters, it'll take over five years for the circa 6,000 kg (13,000 lb) Clipper to reach Jupiter, by way of gravity slingshots from Mars and the spacecraft's home planet. Once at Jupiter, the surveyor will begin a four-year mission to map, sniff, and probe the ice moon of Europa, considered one of the best prospects for harboring the conditions necessary for life in the Solar System.

Jupiter's fourth-largest moon, about 90 percent the size of our own, is entirely covered by a thick shell of ice (believed to be 15 to 25 kilometers deep), which hides a vast ocean of liquid water beneath. This ocean is kept warm by the constant gravitational tugging and kneading from its close orbit around the largest planet in the Solar System. Plumes of liquid erupt from its surface, which could provide evidence about whether Europa's ocean has the conditions necessary to support life.