The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has approved the launch of the Europa Clipper in October. The space probe will launch with a mission to explore Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, and try to discover whether it could support life. It will also seek out a landing spot for a future vessel.
Europa Clipper is the largest vessel NASA has ever constructed for an investigative mission, with solar panels stretching to 100 feet wide. It will take six years to reach its destination. Europa is the smallest of four Galilean moons orbiting the enormous Jupiter and one of its known 95 moons. The Galilean moons are the largest moons of Jupiter, and Europa is the sixth largest in our entire Solar System. It also has the smoothest surface of any moon, with no distinctive craters or mountains.
NASA states that Europa is “considered one of the most promising places where we might find currently habitable environments.” The Europa Clipper is fitted with cameras that will take high-resolution images and spectrometers to measure the physical characteristics of Europa’s surface and surroundings. Additionally, an attached thermal instrument will “pinpoint locations of warmer ice and perhaps recent eruptions of water.”
The Clipper will be launched into space on a Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX was founded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk in 2002. Mr. Musk recently made headlines when he stated that he wants to fly humans to Mars within four years and believes that humans can occupy the red planet and establish cities there within two decades. Musk thinks it is essential that humans occupy other planets in order to survive as a species.
Experts, however, say his dream is unrealistic. Dr. Steven Cave of Cambridge University and the UK’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk said traveling to Mars is a “terrible idea.” Cave argues that taking better care of planet Earth is a much more positive plan. “It is kind of unimaginable that things would get so bad here that Mars would seem like a good idea,” he said. He added that the least habitable places on Earth are still far preferable to anywhere on Mars.
