NASA launches a probe to Jupiter’s moon Europa to investigate its potential suitability for life.

Traveling about 29 billion kilometers over 5 and a half years, scheduled to enter Jupiter’s orbit in April 2030,

Yonhap News,
, “NASA’s unmanned spacecraft ‘Europa Clipper’, tasked with investigating whether life forms can survive on Jupiter’s moon ‘Europa’, was launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket.”,
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, ‘The Europa Clipper was launched at 12:06 PM on the 14th (Eastern Time, 1:06 AM on the 15th in Korea) from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. About 3 minutes after launch, the two side boosters of the rocket pushing the spacecraft separated. The second stage of the rocket carrying the spacecraft successfully separated from the first stage below. About an hour later, the rocket’s second stage escaped Earth’s gravity and entered solar orbit through two engine burns.’,
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, ‘The Europa Clipper spacecraft successfully separated from the rocket’s second stage as planned, and approximately 5 minutes later, NASA’s control room received complete signals from the spacecraft. Cheers and applause erupted from the control room engineers.’,
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, ‘According to NASA, both Jupiter and Earth revolve around the Sun, so the distance between the two planets constantly changes, but on average, they are about 480 million miles (772,485,120 kilometers) apart. This distance is more than five times the distance between Earth and the Sun (about 150 million kilometers).’,
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, ‘After leaving Earth, the spacecraft traveled about 29 billion kilometers over 5 and a half years and is scheduled to enter Jupiter’s orbit in April 2030. It will conduct close flybys of Europa to determine if it has the conditions suitable for life forms.’,
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, ‘The spacecraft will perform 49 close flybys of Europa’s entire surface from a height of 25 kilometers above the surface, which is the closest distance it can get to Europa.’,
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, ‘The Europa Clipper mission is expected to be carried out until 2034.’,
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, ‘The Europa Clipper is equipped with over 2750 kilograms of propellant and 9 exploration instruments needed to travel to Jupiter. These include a magnetometer and gravity measurement device to find clues about the ocean and deep interior of the moon, a thermal mapper to determine ice temperatures, high-resolution cameras and spectrometers, and ice-penetrating radar. The total weight of the spacecraft is 5700 kilograms.’,
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, ‘Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, has an equatorial diameter of 3100 kilometers and is the sixth largest moon in the solar system, about 90% of the size of Earth\’s moon.’,
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, ‘Scientists speculate that there may be a salty ocean beneath the ice layer on Europa’s surface, extending 15 to 25 kilometers deep, providing an ideal environment for life. NASA explains that the Europa Clipper will help scientists confirm the presence of organic molecules on the moon and search for evidence of energy sources below the moon\’s surface.’,
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, ‘The Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft developed by NASA for planetary exploration missions.’,
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