NASA to send unmanned probe to investigate life on Jupiter’s moon

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) unmanned probe “Europa Clipper,” which is tasked with investigating whether Jupiter’s moon Europa could be habitable, will be launched on Monday (local time).

On Sunday, NASA announced that the probe, which was originally scheduled to launch on Thursday but was postponed due to Hurricane Milton, will launch on a SpaceX rocket from John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Monday.

Europa Clipper will travel for the next five and a half years and enter the orbit of Jupiter, which is about 2.9 billion kilometers from Earth, in 2030, where it will conduct a close-up study of Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Europa is the sixth largest moon in the solar system, about 0.9 times the size of the Moon. It is a cold celestial body with an average surface temperature of minus 171 degrees Celsius. Despite this, scientists have long considered it a potential site for life, as it is believed that beneath its 15- —to 25-kilometer-thick surface ice layer lies a salty ocean that could support life.

Europa Clipper will conduct 49 close flybys around Europa to search for signs of organic compounds, the building blocks of life, in these oceans. Along the way, the spacecraft will scan the entire moon with various scientific instruments, including ice-penetrating radar, spectrometers, and thermal and gravity instruments.


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