NASA to send spaceship on 1.8 billion mile mission to explore life on Jupiter
14 October 2024, 14:23 | Updated: 14 October 2024, 14:26
A spaceship is due to take off from Florida this morning for a mission to look for life on Jupiter.
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The Europa Clipper is heading to Jupiter to study one of its moons - which is thought to have a huge underground frozen ocean, twice as big as earth.
The spaceship will have to travel 1.8bn miles and it will take five and a half years to get there.
It is not due to arrive into the planet's orbit until 2030.
Located 628 million km from Earth, Europa is just a bit bigger than our moon.
The U.S. space agency's robotic solar-powered Europa Clipper spacecraft will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, carrying nine scientific instruments.
After a delay caused by Hurricane Milton, NASA set a aunch time for 12:06pm on Monday.
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Let’s go. Our mission to explore Jupiter’s ocean moon Europa is ready to set sail today on a @SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at 12:06pm ET (1606 UTC) from @NASAKennedy 🚀 https://t.co/x4XNEuvd7U pic.twitter.com/p4HvKmVXAZ
— NASA Europa Clipper (@EuropaClipper) October 14, 2024
