A NASA probe is about to set sail to reveal the habitability of Jupiter's moons

NASA is about to launch a probe to explore Jupiter's natural moon Europa to see if the icy moon could have the conditions to support life.

The $5.2 billion Europa Clipper mission has been in the works for more than a decade. The probe will lift off from Florida on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at 12:06 a.m. Edt on Monday (Oct. 14) (around midnight Singapore time on Oct. 15) and reach Europa in 2030.

Over the next four years, Europa will make about 50 close flybys, with its closest passing just 25.7 kilometers from the surface. Amanda Nahm, deputy project scientist for NASA's Europa mission, said: "It has more water than Earth... Most life needs water."

Scientists speculate that there is a large ocean under Europa's icy crust, based on long-term observations and magnetic field measurements by missions such as Voyager (which flew by in 1979) and Galileo (launched in 1989), which estimate the thickness of the ice to be between 16 and 24 kilometers.

The Hubble Space telescope has detected saltwater plumes erupting from the surface of Europa, and if the probe can pass through these plumes, it will have the opportunity to directly sample the composition of the ocean beneath the ice.

The probe is carrying nine scientific instruments that will analyze Europa's environment and composition in detail. At one point, however, NASA was concerned that the equipment would not be able to withstand Jupiter's high radiation environment, but additional tests in September confirmed that the system was able to cope.

Scientists also hope that Europa will contain the basic molecules of life, such as carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen.

"If we find that Europa is currently habitable, I think that would be a game-changer," Nahm said.