WASHINGTON: NASA held on Monday a launch of a spacecraft from Florida to study the possibility of life on Jupiter’s moon, Europa.
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NASA Mission
The mission of the vehicle is to study the environments of the massive sub-surface ocean, which astronauts assume to shelter underneath the thick ice crust on Europa.
NASA’s Europa Clipper was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida’s Cape Canaveral on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket during this bright weather. The robotic solar-powered probe is to go into orbit around Jupiter in 2030 after traveling about 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion km) in 5-1/2 years. It was scheduled to be launched last week, but this was not to be because of Hurricane Milton.
The Perseverance Rover is the biggest spacecraft NASA has developed for a planetary mission, standing at about 10 feet (3m) tall with wheels and about 42 feet (13 meters) long with its antennas and solar arrays deployed with is almost as big as a basketball court and it weighs about 2,300 pounds (1,041 kg).
Europa is the fourth of 95 known moons of Jupiter, although Europa is only a quarter of Earth’s diameter its immense global ocean of dilute brine may hold twice the amount of water as Earth’s oceans. Some scientists believe that life on our planet originated in the world’s oceans.
Europa
The ranges from approximately 1,940 miles (3,100 kilometers) in diameter, which is around 90% the size of moon and thus, has been considered as possible home of life beyond Earth in the solar system. Still, its estimated thickness varies, with meteorologists believing it to be 10-15 miles (15-25 kilometers) of ice over an ocean that may be as deep as 40-100 miles (60-150 kilometers).
Speaking to a prelaunch briefing on Sunday, NASA Associate Administrator Jim Free said that Europa has one of the most favorable conditions for the habitability of planets other than Earth, but added that this mission will not be the search for any form of live.
“Whatever is hidden on the surface of Europa,” Free continued, “will open many important questions for astrobiologists and change everyone’s understanding of the Earth’s position in the universe.”
Europa is supposed to have suitable environment for life beneath its icy crust according to scientists. They are water, energy, chemistry and stability,” said Sandra Connelly, deputy associate administrator of NASA’s science mission directorate.
Among the key goals are to find out how thick the ocean is and how thick the ice layer capping it is, as well as to study the geology of the moon’s surface and search for instances of water vapor being released from beneath the ice surface. Specifically, Europa Clipper from 2031 will perform 49 low flybys of Europa, with the distance to the moon’s surface being from 16 mls (25 kms).
Europa Clipper will be traveling in reality, a highly charged radiation zone around Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.
The magnetic field around Jupiter is 20,000 times more than that of Earth is in a protection zone for the big planet. This magnetic field rotates and captures, accelerating charged particles and producing a radiation that could be dangerous to spacecraft. NASA came up with a box of titanium and aluminum within the Europa Clipper to shield its electronics from this radiation.
“Another difficulty of the Europa Clipper mission is to provide a structure moving into a battle zone where radiation can hit a spaceship , having the same time an inner structure that is delicate enough to conduct the measurements necessary to study the state of environment on Europa,” Connelly explained.
Europa Clipper is packed with more than 6,060 pounds (2,750 kg) of propellant that is required to take it to Jupiter, the space agency added. At the start of the project, the spacecraft was fitted within a cone-shaped fairing at the top of the rocket.
The spacecraft will not go directly to Jupiter. However, the rover is actually designed to fly to Mars, then back to Earth using the local gravitational field to ‘bump up’ the object’s velocities. Although deployed on this launch, the solar arrays will collect light for operating the spacecraft’s nine scientific instruments in addition to all the electronics and other sub-systems.
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