This October, NASA will launch the Europa Clipper spacecraft, starting a deep house mission to one in every of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, to find out if it’s able to supporting life.
Market’s Lily Jamali not too long ago visited NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the place the Clipper was constructed, to study extra in regards to the mission and see the spacecraft earlier than it’s shipped off to Cape Canaveral, Florida, later this month.
Market’s Lily Jamali stands in entrance of NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Later this yr, NASA will ship it to Jupiter’s moon, Europa, to find out if life can exist there. You may get a more in-depth take a look at the Europa Clipper spacecraft right here.
To be able to make its scheduled 1.8 billion-mile voyage to Europa, the spacecraft comes outfitted with large solar energy arrays, heavy radiation shielding and a skinny steel plate that can carry, amongst different issues, visible representations of the phrase “water” in 140 languages.
Why water? As a result of NASA is assured there’s a salt water ocean beneath Europa’s icy floor that would assist life, due to scans carried out by the Galileo spacecraft within the Nineteen Nineties.
“The very best proof for this liquid water ocean being there got here from this magnetic sign that’s created when this conductive layer of saltwater that’s below Europa’s floor strikes by the magnetic subject created by Jupiter,” stated Cynthia Phillips, challenge workers scientist and planetary geologist at JPL.
Market’s Lily Jamali spoke with Phillips and mission scientist Kate Craft with the Johns Hopkins Utilized Physics Laboratory about why NASA is searching for these situations for all times on Europa.
Click on the participant above to listen to the at interview, and watch footage from our latest journey to JPL beneath.
Preston Dyches, senior public engagement specialist at JPL, talks in regards to the “message in a bottle” connected to the Europa Clipper.
Cynthia Phillips, a planetary geologist at JPL, reveals off a mannequin of Europa’s floor and the salt water ocean mendacity beneath.
Lily Jamali needed to undergo a rigorous decontamination process earlier than getting a close-up take a look at the Europa Clipper.
Tracy Drain, launch-to-Mars mission supervisor for Europa Clipper, explains why everybody who goes close to the spacecraft should undergo a rigorous decontamination course of.
