A Nasa spacecraft bound for Jupiter's icy moon Europa is scheduled to blast off from the Kennedy Space Center this week.
The Europa Clipper is the largest planetary explorer Nasa has ever built and its mission is to conduct 44 fly-bys of the moon to determine whether it could support life.
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Evidence of Europa's gigantic global ocean of liquid saltwater beneath its frozen crust first came to light during Nasa's 1996 Galileo fly-by mission which revealed the moon had its own magnetic field. The latest mission will use ice-penetrating radar to peer beneath the crust and search for hidden pockets of liquid water.
The spacecraft is due to launch on Thursday, but won't reach Jupiter's orbit until 2030. If there's "even a hint that the stuff of life exists" on Europa, a separate surface lander would then be needed to probe deeper.
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