NASA launches spacecraft to gauge if Jupiter's moon Europa can host life

15/10/2024 7:10

        NASA launched a spacecraft from Florida on Monday on a mission to examine whether Jupiter's moon Europa has conditions suitable to support life, with a focus on the large subsurface ocean believed to be lurking beneath its thick outer shell of ice.
        
        The U.S. space agency's Europa Clipper spacecraft blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket under sunny skies. The robotic solar-powered probe is due to enter orbit around Jupiter in 2030 after journeying about 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion km) in 5-1/2
        years. The launch had been planned for last week but was put off because of Hurricane Milton.
        
        It is the largest spacecraft NASA has built for a planetary mission, at about 100 feet (30.5 meters) long and about 58 feet (17.6 meters) wide with its antennas and solar arrays fully deployed - bigger than a basketball court - while weighing approximately 13,000 pounds (6,000 kg).