Emily Chan
NASA will soon be launching a mission to Europa, the planet Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon. A spacecraft called the Europa Clipper will be sent to the icy moon to conduct a detailed study and search for areas that could potentially host alien life.
The launch was due to start on October 10, but it has been temporarily postponed because of Hurricane Milton.
Europa Clipper weighs about the same as a large African elephant and is as wide as a basketball court when its solar sails are unfolded. It is the largest planetary exploration spacecraft that NASA has ever built.
Usually, Mars is the target for searches for signs of alien life because it’s close to Earth and easier to explore.
But there are other places in the solar system that could support life, particularly the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. They contain liquid water, which is the foundation of life on Earth.
These moons contain liquid water because Jupiter and Saturn both hold immense gravitational power over them.
For example, Titan and Enceladus, Saturn’s moons, are stretched and compressed by gravity as they orbit their planet.
As a result, there are vast underground oceans with plumes of water vapors bursting from the solid, icy surface.
Scientists suspect that Europa is the same. The moon has been observed for over four centuries, but it has not yet been confirmed that an underground liquid ocean exists, like on Titan and Enceladus.
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