SpaceX just launched a huge NASA craft. It's headed to an ocean world.
- by Mashable
- Oct 14, 2024
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A conception of NASA's Europa Clipper approaching the ice-covered world, Europa.
Credit: NASA
A NASA probe, the length of a basketball court, is headed to the tantalizing world Europa.
The Europa Clipper craft successfully launched from Kennedy Space Center atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at 12:06 p.m. ET on Oct. 14, with no anomalies reported at time of publishing. The mission is long-anticipated: Planetary scientists are confident this moon of Jupiter harbors a deep ocean. A looming question is whether it hosts the ingredients and conditions to support life. With around 50 close flybys of the moon, the sizable craft — the largest probe NASA has ever built for a planetary science mission — intends to find Europa's answer.
"It's perhaps one of the best places beyond Earth to look for life in our solar system," Cynthia Phillips, a NASA planetary geologist and project staff scientist for the space agency's Europa Clipper mission, told Mashable.
SEE ALSO: Why the Europa Clipper spacecraft is so big
Europa Clipper, over 100 feet (30.5 meters) long, is big because it needs to generate solar power in deep space. And the Jupiter region only receives three to four percent of the sunlight that Earth receives. Hence the long wings, or arrays.
"You just need these giant solar arrays in order to power all your instruments," Phillips explained. "We're talking about a huge expanse of solar arrays."
Capturing loads of the distant sunlight will create some 700 watts of electricity, which is "about what a small microwave oven or a coffee maker needs to operate," NASA explains. But the craft also carries batteries to help power a host of moon-sleuthing instruments.
"I'm really excited about this payload that we're bringing to Europa," Phillips said.
"I'm really excited about this payload that we're bringing to Europa."
An ice-penetrating radar will look beneath the moon's icy, cracked crust. It will see how this icy subsurface is composed, and possibly, possibly, detect where the ice meets the ocean. (Europa's ice shell is likely some 10 to 15 miles, or 15 to 25 kilometers, thick.) This radar could detect about half a mile deep, or it could be much more — that depends on how fractured the ice is and the purity of the ice (a fractured subsurface, for example, means the radar signal will bounce around more, as opposed to penetrating down). There's potential, however, that the radar will infiltrate a whopping 19 miles (30 kilometers) down.
One of Europa Clipper's wings extended at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Credit: NASA
The Europa Clipper's SUrface Dust Analyzer, or SUDA, which will scoop up particles blasted into space around the moon.
Credit: NASA / CU Boulder / Glenn Asakawa
In addition to a suite of specialized cameras, Europa Clipper also carries an instrument called the SUrface Dust Analyzer, or SUDA, that will literally sample particles of Europa that have been ejected into space by tiny meteorites. "Micrometeorites constantly blast fragments of Europa’s surface into space," NASA explains. "The ejecta are individually small, but scientists estimate that half a ton (about 500 kilograms) of Europa’s surface material floats above the moon at all times."
One of the most exciting opportunities of the mission — though far from guaranteed — is the craft potentially flying through a water-ice plume blasted out from Europa's surface. This would allow the instruments exquisite insight into Europa's interior.
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