NASA has successfully launched its alien-hunting mission to Jupiter‘s fourth largest moon that could host the ingredients for life.
The Europa Clipper spacecraft took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:08pm ET, tucked inside a SpaceX Falcon rocket.
The $5.2 billion probe is set to travel 1.8 billion-mile to Europa, meeting the target in April 2030, and perform more than 40 flybys to look for ‘conditions suitable for life.’
Europa has long been a prime candidate due to having an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy surface.
NASA official Gina DiBraccio said: ‘Europa is one of the most promising places to look for life beyond Earth.’
The Clipper spacecraft took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12:06 ET, tucked inside a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket
While the mission is not looking specifically for life, Clipper was designed to help NASA learn if Europa has the necessary ingredients for life.
Scientists have previously determined that in order for a planet to have life it needs to have three main ingredients: temperatures that allow liquid water to exist; the presence of carbon-based molecules; and an energy input, such as sunlight.
And NASA believes Europa has them all.
Dr Buratti said exploratory missions such as this one always uncover something ‘that we could not have imagined.’
‘There is going to be something there – the unknown – that is going to be so wonderful that we can’t conceive of it right now,’ she said.
‘That’s the thing that excites me most.’
One of Jupiter’s 95 known moons, Europa is encased in an ice sheet estimated to be 10 to 15 miles or more thick.
Scientists believe this frozen crust hides a saltwater liquid ocean that could be at least 80 miles deep and hold about twice as much water as Earth’s oceans combined.
SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy separated from the core stage about five minutes after launch, with the first stage following shortly after, which means Clipper has reached space for the first time.
NASA and SpaceX received data that both the Falcon Heavy rocket and Clipper are in good health as they sit in orbit.
And the spacecraft deployed around 1:13pm ET, separating from the Falcon Heavy upper stage.
A team of researcher led by the University of Washington determined earlier this year that the tools about Clipper are capable of picking up a single living cell in a tiny ice grain ejected from the moon’s oceans.
The spacecraft holds nine instruments, with its sensitive electronics stored in a vault with dense zinc and aluminum walls for protection against radiation.
Clipper also features onboard radar specifically designed to penetrate the moon’s ice sheet.
The mechanics, according to researchers, can detect microbes in one out of hundreds of thousands of ice grains – and identify chemicals that are key components of life on Earth.
One of Jupiter’s 95 known moons, Europa is encased in an ice sheet estimated to be 10 to 15 miles or more thick
If Clipper beams back positive results, another mission would then have to make the journey to try to detect it – for example, by drilling down through the icy shell.
Robert Pappalardo, the mission’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said: ‘The instruments work together hand in hand to answer our most pressing questions about Europa.
‘We will learn what makes Europa tick, from its core and rocky interior to its ocean and ice shell to its very thin atmosphere and the surrounding space environment.’
A total of five spacecraft have visited the distant planetary body, but Clipper is set to feature the most powerful instruments of any previous mission – and was developed with the goal of searching for life.
Dr Buratti thinks any life on Europa would be primitive like the bacterial life that originated in Earth’s deep ocean vents.
If Clipper beams back positive results, another mission would then have to make the journey to try to detect it – for example, by drilling down through the icy shell.
The main mission will last another four years as the probe make 49 flybys over Europa coming as close as 16 miles above the surface.
It will be subjected to intense radiation – the equivalent of several million chest x-rays on each pass.