The Clipper and the Comet

The Clipper and the Comet

Image Credit &
Copyright:

Ben Cooper
(Launch Photography)

Explanation:

NASA’s Europa Clipper
is now headed toward an ocean world beyond Earth.

The large spacecraft is tucked into the payload fairing atop the
Falcon Heavy rocket in this
photo, taken at Kennedy Space Center
the day before the mission’s successful October 14 launch.

Europa Clipper’s interplanetary voyage will first take it to Mars,
then back to Earth, and then on to Jupiter on
gravity assist trajectories
that will allow it to enter orbit around Jupiter in April 2030.

Once orbiting Jupiter, the spacecraft will fly past Europa 49 times,
exploring a Jovian moon
with a global subsurface ocean that may have conditions to support life.

Posing in the background next to the floodlit rocket
is Comet Tsuchinsan-ATLAS, about a day after the comet’s closest approach to
Earth.

A current darling of evening skies,
the naked-eye comet is a
vistor from the distant Oort cloud