{"id":153679,"date":"2024-10-14T16:14:07","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T16:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/14\/europa-clipper-nasa-spacecraft-blasts-off-to-study-whether-jupiter-moon-can-support-life\/"},"modified":"2024-10-14T16:14:07","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T16:14:07","slug":"europa-clipper-nasa-spacecraft-blasts-off-to-study-whether-jupiter-moon-can-support-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/14\/europa-clipper-nasa-spacecraft-blasts-off-to-study-whether-jupiter-moon-can-support-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Europa Clipper: NASA spacecraft blasts off to study whether Jupiter moon can support life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Europa<\/div>


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A NASA spacecraft has launched from Florida on a mission to establish whether Jupiter’s icy moon Europa could support life.<\/p>\n

The craft, called Europa Clipper, was on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket which blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n

Its launch had been delayed by the deadly Hurricane Milton which struck the US state last week.<\/p>\n

The mission’s main scientific goal is to establish whether there are places below the surface of the moon that can harbour life.<\/p>\n

Scientists are interested in the salty liquid water ocean that previous observations have shown is under Europa’s icy shell.<\/p>\n

The craft will carry out 49 close flybys of Europa over three years, gathering detailed measurements to investigate the moon.<\/p>\n

It will fly as low as 16 miles above the surface, soaring over a different location during each flyby to scan nearly the entire moon.<\/p>\n

Europa Clipper, which is about 30m long, 17m wide and weighs six tonnes, is the largest spacecraft the US space agency has ever built for a planetary mission.<\/p>\n

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\n Image:<\/span>
\n Europa Clipper is as big as a basketball court. Pic: Artist’s illustration\/NASA
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The solar-powered spacecraft, that is carrying nine scientific instruments, will travel 1.8 billion miles in a trip lasting about five and a half years and is due to enter orbit around Jupiter in 2030.<\/p>\n

Its solar panels will gather sunlight for powering scientific instruments, electronics and its other subsystems.<\/p>\n

NASA said: “The mission’s three main science objectives are to understand the nature of the ice shell and the ocean beneath it, along with the moon’s composition and geology.<\/p>\n

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“The mission’s detailed exploration of Europa will help scientists better understand the astrobiological potential for habitable worlds beyond our planet,” the agency added.<\/p>\n

The mission’s deputy project scientist Bonnie Buratti, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said: “There is very strong evidence that the ingredients for life exist on Europa. But we have to go there to find out.”<\/p>\n

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Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News<\/p>\n

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The planetary scientist added: “Just to emphasise: we’re not a life-detection mission. We’re just looking for the conditions for life.”<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A NASA spacecraft has launched from Florida on a mission to establish whether Jupiter’s icy moon Europa could support life. The craft, called Europa Clipper, was on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket which blasted off from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Its launch had been delayed by the deadly Hurricane Milton which struck the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/24\/10\/768x432\/skynews-europa-clipper-jupiter_6715913.jpg?20241014170007","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[607],"tags":[967,104047,9955,51053,76,3891,2660,33519,250,864],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153679"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153681,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153679\/revisions\/153681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}