The Third Edit: Europa Clipper mission may or may not find signs of life, but it will fire a million imaginations

The past mates of days person seen 2 breathtaking abstraction events. Elon Musk’s SpaceX achieved perchance the astir stunning feat successful caller years erstwhile 1 of its rockets, connected its instrumentality travel to Earth, was caught mid-air by the ample mechanical arms of its motorboat tower, demonstrating a large beforehand towards realising the extremity of a afloat reusable rocket. Two days later, NASA’s Europa Clipper mission embarked connected a agelong travel to Europa, 1 of respective moons of Jupiter, to analyse 1 of the astir apt places for extra-terrestrial beingness successful the star system.

Space exploration has undergone a qualitative translation successful the past fewer years, with a flurry of high-profile innovative missions being launched, each 1 breaking caller ground. Decades of comparatively soundless exploration and exertion improvement person resulted successful capabilities that present alteration abstraction agencies, including backstage players similar SpaceX, to purpose for what seemed futuristic conscionable a fewer years ago. Though a ngo to Jupiter is thing new, and determination person been different spacecraft that person travelled further into space, the Europa Clipper ngo is special. It has the archetypal realistic accidental of encountering beingness beyond the Earth, oregon much accurately, encountering conditions that person a precocious probability of sustaining life. Europa is 1 of the fewer places successful the star strategy — a satellite of Saturn is different campaigner — suspected of having a ample salty water beneath the surface, akin to those connected Earth.