$5 billion Clipper probe is scheduled to depart in October aboard a Space solar system. Device will travel for more than five years and will notably pass through Mars before entering orbit around Jupiter and Europa in 2031.
The probe's final step will be to crash into a moon of Jupiter, says Tim Larson, deputy project leader for the Europa Clipper mission. Clipper will receive the equivalent of 100,000 chest x-rays at each loop around its objective, which will take 45 minutes to arrive at the control station. The device is currently kept in a sterile room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, accessible only to personnel covered from head to toe.. Scientists know that even in extreme climates on Earth, under the ice cap in environments without light, small forms of life can exist. “If the moons around the planets far from the stars could host life, then the number of possibilities in the solar system, in the universe, for life to be present, increases drastically, I think,” said Jordan Evans, project leader.