Published On Oct 20, 2024
NASA's Europa Clipper mission will be the largest spacecraft ever to go into deep space. The 6 ton spacecraft will eventually arrive at Jupiter in 2030 and will make multiple flypasts of Europa, Jupiter's second moon, which is believed to have a substantial sub-surface ocean, warmed by tidal heating from the giant planet.
This mission will spend years using its instruments to give us a better understanding of Jupiter's icy moons, which may sustain a complex chemical system in their oceans, and perhaps complex enough to support abiogenesis - that is, the formation of life. While the probe is unlikely to be able to provide definitive proof of this, it will absolutely give the world the best look yet at a world which may have all the right ingredients for this.
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