Mission to a Mysterious Moon

NASA/JPL-CALTECH

If all goes according to plan, a new spacecraft will soon blast off to Europa, Jupiter’s fourth-largest moon. The spacecraft, called Europa Clipper, is scheduled to reach its destination in 2030, after traveling 714 million kilometers (444 million miles)!

Instruments onboard Europa Clipper will investigate the moon to determine whether a vast ocean of liquid water exists beneath its icy surface. The mission will also look for elements like carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O)—which are some of the building blocks of life on Earth. “We can’t wait to see what Europa Clipper shows us,” says Robert Pappalardo, a NASA scientist working on the project.

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