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14/10/24
Europa Clipper Launch
An exciting mission into space began today. A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, USA . On board was the Europa Clipper, a space probe that is headed to Europa, which is one of Jupiter’s moons. The launch was successful and after about an hour the spacecraft separated from the rocket to continue its journey.
Why is this mission interesting? Because it is the first NASA mission all about learning about an ocean world beyond Earth. And what might exist if there is water? Life! NASA want to learn more about Europa because underneath it’s icy surface it is believed there is an ocean of water. And if there is water there is the potential for life of some form to be living there.
Europa Clipper Mission
The Europa Clipper is a space probe. A space probe is a unmanned spacecraft that is designed to find out more information about planets, moons, asteroids and comets. Space probes can go where humans can’t. They can travel far away from our planet and go to places that humans can’t reach. They can get us much closer to far away objects in our solar system so we can find out more about them, much more than we can learn from telescopes here on Earth. Space probes have visited many planets and moons in the past and it is one of the reasons we know so much about the Solar System we live in.
The Europa Clipper is a very large solar powered spacecraft with 49 engines. To power it so far away from the Sun it has the largest solar arrays NASA has ever used for a mission like this and the spacecraft is 30.5 meters from end to end.
The Europa Clipper will take six years to reach Jupiter and its moon Europa! It will hopefully get there in 2030. It is a journey of 1.8 billion miles! Once it is there it is hoped that it will be able to do 49 close flybys of the moon over four years. It won’t be orbiting Europa, but instead will be orbiting Jupiter. It will go as close as 16 miles to the surface of the moon, carrying out scientific experiments and taking close up images of it, helping us learn more about the moon’s icy shell, thin atmosphere, and what lies underneath too.
Several space probes have made observations of Europa before, including NASA’s Voyager 1, Voyager 2 and Galileo missions but this is the first mission that is all about Europa. There is also another space mission already on its way to Europa. Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer launched on the 14th April in 2023. That mission will be looking to see if there are any organic molecules present, again looking for any form of life that might be there. The Europa Clipper will overtake that mission and will arrive at Europa first!
An artists impression of the Europa Clipper reaching its destination
10 Facts about Europa
1. Europa was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei and in the same year Simon Marius also found it and named it Europa. Europa and the three other largest moons of Jupiter were the first objects in the solar system discovered with a telescope.
2. Europa is the fourth largest of Jupiter’s 95 known moons. Ganymede is Jupiter’s largest moon and the largest moon in the whole solar system, it’s even larger than Mercury. Callisto is Jupiter’s second largest moon and the third biggest in the Solar System. Io is Jupiter third largest moon and is covered in active volcanoes.
3. Europa is slightly smaller than Earth’s Moon. It is bigger than Pluto. It is the 6th biggest moon in the Solar System.
4. It is thought that Europa has an ice shell that is 10 to 15 miles thick, floating on an ocean of salty water that is 40 to 100 miles deep. The smooth icy shell or surface has lots of cracks and streaks on it. There are no mountains, volcanoes or canyons, and even very few craters.
5. The surface of Europa looks red in places in some photos. This is not thought to be rust like on Mars but salts from the ocean that is below the surface.
6. Its ocean might contain twice as much water as on Earth. Because of all this water scientists think there is a real chance of finding life living there. If some form of life is found on Europa, it is thought that will show it is likely there could be life somewhere else outside the Solar System too.
7. Under the water and ice there is a rocky core. Above it has a very thin atmosphere which is mainly made of oxygen.
8. The Hubble Space Telescope has taken pictures of Europa that seem to show plumes of water shooting from the surface of the moon.
9. A day on Europa is 3 and a half Earth days. A year is about 12 Earth years.
10. Europa is about 485 million miles away from the Sun and the temperature on the moon never goes above -160 degrees celsius.
All photos and illustrations in this blog post are Whizzbots Images.
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