NASA launches space mission to Jupiter moon in search for life
Al Jazeera
Europa Clipper is headed to Jupiter’s moon, Europa, where an ocean is thought to lie below the surface.
The Europa Clipper spacecraft is on an almost six-year, 3 billion kilometres (1.8b miles) mission to learn whether conditions on Jupiter’s moon could sustain life in what scientists believe could be a deep ocean hidden beneath its icy surface.
The spacecraft launched Monday aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket from a NASA facility on Florida’s east coast.
The launch was delayed several days by the impacts of Hurricane Milton at its Florida launch site.
The launch also came a day after SpaceX launched its fifth Starship test flight from Texas and returned the rocket’s booster to land for the first time.
Europa is one of Jupiter’s 95 known moons, and scientists believe it could have an ocean that is up to 120 kilometres (80 miles) deep, hidden beneath a thick ice sheet covering its surface.
