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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Time can appear to move faster or slower to us relative to others in a different part of space-time. </li><li>That means astronauts on the International Space Station age slower than people on Earth.</li></ul><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-astronauts-speak-out-boeing-starliner-spaceship-issues-space-station-2024-7">Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams</a> are stuck in space on the International Space Station until February, but it's not the worst that could happen.There are a lot of perks to spending time in space from the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/best-astronaut-photos-from-the-international-space-station-this-year-2022-11">epic views</a> to the company. The one that you rarely hear about, though, is the aging effect.Astronauts age more slowly than people on Earth. The difference isn't noticeable though — after spending six months on the ISS, astronauts age about <a href="https://x.com/esa/status/1761346288824528913?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1761346288824528913%7Ctwgr%5E4f4d17cad38b975a9eb2c223018f61dfa14b3fdd%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ndtv.com%2Findia-news%2Fexplained-why-astronauts-age-slightly-slower-in-space-5143360" target="_blank" rel="noopener">0.005 seconds</a> less than the rest of us.So after spending about <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-stranded-astronauts-return-nasa-boeing-starliner-spacex-crew-dragon-2024-8">9 extra months in space</a>, Williams and Wilmore will be about 0.0075 seconds younger than if they'd returned to Earth in June as scheduled. <div type="image" title="photo of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams smiling at the camera from inside the white interior of a spaceship" height="640" width="1280" msid="113468405" hostid="261" sizebytes="54814"></div>There are a couple of scientific reasons for why this happens, and it all starts with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cosmic-glitch-makes-scientists-rethink-einstein-greatest-theory-2024-5">Albert Einstein's theory of relativity</a>. <h2>At first, it seems like astronauts should age faster, not slower</h2>We've all heard the phrase that "time is relative," but it can be difficult to wrap our minds around what that actually means.The phrase came from Einstein's theory of relativity that joined space and time and created the idea of a fabric that permeates the whole universe: "<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/einstein-concept-space-time-theorist-brian-greene-science-physics-2016-11">space-time.</a>"We all measure our experience in space-time differently. That's because space-time isn't flat — it's curved, and it can be <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/black-hole-warps-space-astronomers-see-light-behind-it-2021-8">warped by matter</a> and energy.<div type="image" title="Illustrations of Earth warping a blue grid in space that's the fabric of space-time" height="1055" width="2111" msid="113468408" hostid="261" sizebytes="488476"></div>This effect leads to something called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/crazy-physics-to-understand-interstellar-2014-11">gravitational time dilation</a>. Time appears to move slower near massive objects because the object's gravitational force bends space-time.Technically, that means a watch strapped to your ankle will eventually fall behind one strapped to your wrist because your feet are nearer to Earth's center of gravity than your hands. But the effect is so minuscule that you'd never notice.Astronauts aboard the ISS, on the other hand, are much farther from Earth's center of gravity than the rest of us — about 260 miles farther. So, in that case, astronauts actually age slower.But time is weird, and there's another phenomenon called relative velocity time dilation that usurps gravity's effect.<h2>Why astronauts age slower</h2>Relative velocity time dilation is where time moves slower as you move faster.The classic example of this is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/albert-einstein-thought-experiments-2023-10">the twin scenario</a>. One twin blasts off in a spaceship traveling close to the speed of light, and one twin stays behind on Earth. When the space-traveling twin returns to Earth, she's only aged a couple of years, but she's shocked to find that her Earth-bound sister has aged over a decade.Of course, no one has performed that experiment in real life, but there's evidence that it's real. When scientists <a href="https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2022/02/jila-atomic-clocks-measure-einsteins-general-relativity-millimeter-scale">launched an atomic clock</a> into orbit and back — while keeping an identical clock here on Earth — it returned running ever so slightly behind the Earth-bound clock. It's the same effect for astronauts on the ISS.<div type="image" title="The International Space Station (ISS) photographed by Expedition 56 crew members from a Soyuz spacecraft after undocking, October 4, 2018." height="4032" width="5376" msid="113468406" hostid="261" sizebytes="908558"></div>The space station is <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronaut-spend-355-days-orbit-international-space-station-2022-9">whizzing around Earth</a> at about five miles per second (18,000 mph), according to NASA. That means time moves slower for the astronauts relative to people on the surface.Now, it's not as slow as it could be because gravitational time-dilation is actually making them age a smidge faster compared to the rest of us on Earth. But their velocity time dilation has a bigger effect than their gravitational time dilation, so in the end, astronauts age slightly slower while in space.<h2>Astronaut's telomeres also grow longer while in space </h2>Unrelated to the physics of space-time is another <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-twin-study-new-results-mark-scott-kelly-2017-10">peculiar phenomenon astronauts experience</a> that suggests an anti-aging effect. A couple of preliminary studies in recent years have found that astronauts' telomeres grow longer while in space. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nobel-prize-winning-elizabeth-blackburn-telomere-effect-how-to-slow-down-aging-effects-2017-1">Telomeres are caps</a> at the ends of your chromosomes that protect against damage. As you age, your telomeres shorten. <div type="image" title="illustrations of x-shaped blue chromosomes with white capped telomeres" height="1322" width="1762" msid="113468409" hostid="261" sizebytes="41396"></div>But when astronaut Scott Kelly spent a year in space, he came back with telomeres that were longer than when he left. The <a href="https://cvmbs.source.colostate.edu/new-research-spaceflight-susan-bailey/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">same was found true</a> for four commercial astronauts who were part of the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-final-members-of-the-all-civilian-inspiration4mission-revealed-2021-4">2021 SpaceX Inspiration4 spaceflight</a>. Interestingly, they only spent three days in space.It's unclear if <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/anti-aging-longevity-trends-shock-testosterone-2023-3">longer telomeres are linked to a longer life</a>, though. Research is ongoing in that field of work.Moreover, aging fractions of a second slower due to the quarks of space-time isn't going to make a difference either. That's not why we go to space. We go to space because, "space exploration unites the world to inspire the next generation, make ground-breaking discoveries, and create new opportunities," according to NASA.So the next time you find yourself wishing the weekend would last longer, stay low to the ground and move really fast. It won't feel like your weekend got any longer, but technically you may gain a teeny, tiny fraction of a fraction of a second. Remember, time is relative.An earlier version of this story was published on January 1, 2023, and it was most recently updated on September 18, 2024.

Here's why astronauts age slower than the rest of us here on Earth

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA approved the $19.5 million Landolt Space Mission to send an artificial star into Earth's orbit.</li><li>It will be the first astronomical tool of its kind that could revolutionize the way we study space.</li></ul>Astronomers typically deal with the very, very large — <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/blueprints-giant-telescopes-moon-nasa-astronomers-2024-2">big telescopes</a>, giant galaxies, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rare-cosmic-explosion-visible-naked-eye-nasa-space-2024-3">massive exploding stars</a>.But one of the more <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope-best-images-from-first-year-2022-12">revolutionary astronomy tools</a> of the decade is a mini satellite about the size of a bread box. The satellite will act as an artificial star for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomers-discover-fastest-runaway-stars-in-milky-way-galaxy-2023-6">astronomers to observe from the ground,</a> allowing them to more accurately measure a space object's brightness and better understand some of the biggest mysteries in our universe, like dark energy.NASA recently approved the $19.5 million Landolt Space Mission to launch the mini satellite into Earth's orbit."This is some really awesome science that NASA is supporting," Tyler Richey-Yowell, a postdoctoral researcher at Lowell Observatory who studies stellar astronomy and exoplanets, told Business Insider. "It's something that's going to help out all astronomers."<h2 id="850dab02-cefa-4f6a-b198-ab2890924c14">A revolutionary new tool for astronomers</h2><div type="image" title="illustration of Landalt satellite firing lasers at an observatory on Earth" height="1030" width="2048" msid="111091999" hostid="261"></div>The mini satellite, called <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/planet-mars-image-nasa-marco-cubesat-2018-10">CubeSat</a>, is designed to orbit Earth from 22,236 miles away. At that distance, its speed will match Earth's spin so the satellite will appear fixed in the night sky and be an easy target for telescopes to track.You won't be able to see it with the naked eye. But to telescopes, it'll look like a star. The mission is scheduled to launch in 2029. It will be the first tool of its kind."This is really new for us to have some sort of artificial star, quote, unquote, up there that we can go and rely on and use," Richey-Yowell told BI.What makes this "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/china-fusion-artificial-star-hotter-sun-2016-2">artificial star</a>" better than a real one is that astronomers will know exactly how much light it's emitting.The CubeSat, named Landolt for the late astronomer Arlo Landolt, will <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-laser-beam-message-10-million-miles-away-streaming-mars-2023-11">fire lasers</a> with a specific number of light particles, or photons, which astronomers can use to calibrate their telescopes for measuring light.This can help eliminate a lot of the guesswork that astronomers do now when using real stars to calibrate their instruments.The problem is that there's no way of knowing exactly how much light real stars emit, because we can't send a probe to one to accurately measure its brightness, Richey-Yowell said. Moreover, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/stratosphere-shrinking-greenhouse-gas-emissions-climate-change-2021-5">Earth's atmosphere</a> absorbs a lot of light from space, which can also affect astronomers' calibrations."That's why this Landolt mission is so important," Richey-Yowell said, adding that "if we send up a mission like this one where we know exactly how many photons, how much light per second, is coming from this CubeSat," then it could be used to compare and more precisely measure the light from other objects, like real stars.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/nasa-will-put-a-new-star-in-the-sky-by-the-end-of-the-decade-in-1st-of-its-kind-mission">Live Science reported</a> that the mission is expected to help astronomers measure the light emitted from stars with 10 times the accuracy of current estimates.It's like if you were given a 1,000-piece puzzle with only half the pieces and then someone gifted you a few hundred more pieces. Landolt can help astronomers catch minute details they've otherwise been missing in the data.<h2 id="497f43a9-311c-42dd-b3e3-da5a0877850f">How Landolt could revolutionize astronomy</h2><div type="image" title="Illustration of an exoplanet floating in space surrounded by clouds of white and blue cosmic gas and dust" height="1322" width="2266" msid="111091996" hostid="261"></div>"All of our astronomy is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/flare-billion-times-sun-baffles-scientists-2023-11">based on light</a>, and so we really need to know how much light we are actually receiving," Richey-Yowell said.You can learn a lot from a ray of light: a star's temperature, its mass, the types of exoplanets orbiting it and whether they could harbor life.For example, knowing how hot a host star is can tell you how far an exoplanet must be in order to sustain liquid water on its surface, Richey-Yowell said. Water is a main ingredient of life as we know it and a key feature astrobiologists search for when scoping out potential planets that could harbor life.Finding more <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomers-find-earth-like-planet-sun-like-star-2020-6">Earth-like planets</a> is just the beginning. Astronomers can also use Landolt to measure light from distant exploding stars, called supernovae, that can help calculate the expansion rate of the universe.Right now, cosmologists studying the universe's expansion face a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cosmic-glitch-makes-scientists-rethink-einstein-greatest-theory-2024-5">huge challenge</a>: They can't settle on a single value for the expansion rate. Some methods lead to one value, while others lead to a slightly different one. This conundrum could be key to figuring out some of the biggest mysteries of the universe, like understanding the invisible force ripping our universe apart that we call <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/largest-cosmic-map-new-understanding-dark-energy-universe-expansion-einstein-2024-4">dark energy</a>."So really anything from small, tiny planets to the whole scale of the universe relies on our understanding of stars and how bright they are and what kind of light they're emitting," Richey-Yowell said. "I really do think it will be revolutionary for astronomy."

NASA is putting an 'artificial star' in orbit around Earth

<ul class="summary-list"><li>There's a lot that a healthy lifestyle can do for your longevity.</li><li>But in old age, a big part of the equation comes down to genetics.</li></ul>We are, collectively speaking, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/raadfest-cheat-death-longevity-loma-linda-blue-zone-2023-9">living longer than ever</a> before.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-has-life-expectancy-changed-throughout-history-2015-6">Life expectancy in the US</a> shot up at a rate of about three years per decade in the last century: from roughly age 47 in 1900 to age 77 in 2000. This was largely due to major medical breakthroughs and public health moves that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-improve-longevity-supplements-vs-exercise-and-diet-2024-3">boosted longevity</a>, including handwashing, proper sanitation, nutrition, and exercise.An <a target="_blank" href="https://affiliate.insider.com?h=51af0bbb0c5c69614864bb3c70f60d706f8bf315ccfd568dcea8dbe05f1a4ed4&amp;postID=67037fd3e5b5408300488cea&amp;postSlug=human-life-span-plateaued-what-you-can-do-long-life-2024-10&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs43587-024-00702-3+">analysis</a> published Monday in Nature Aging suggests that our longevity-boosting heyday is coming to a close.As more people in wealthy countries make it to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/blue-zones-longevity-breakfast-smoothie-protein-rich-and-easy-recipe-2024-8">old age</a>, human life expectancy gains are nearing a plateau. There are no demographic hints to suggest that most of us alive now will make it into the triple digits, no matter how hard we try, how rich we may become, or what any <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biological-age-test-calculation-interpret-results-2024-2">biological age test</a> might tell us. It appears there are some strict limits to what medicine and biology can do for the human lifespan, at least right now."If somebody tells you that they know how to get you to 100, don't listen to them because they don't know what they're talking about," lead study author S. Jay Olshansky, a biostatistician who studies the upper limits of human longevity at the University of Illinois, Chicago, told Business Insider.<div type="image" title="An older woman in novelty glasses behind a cake with candles that say &quot;100.&quot;" height="1414" width="2120" msid="114021009" hostid="261" sizebytes="96772"></div>His assertion is that, barring any big advances, only 15% of women and 5% of men may live to 100 in this century. This best-case-scenario estimate is bolstered by 30 years of demographic study on some of the longest-lived, richest countries in the world, from 1990 to 2019.But, he says, this isn't cause for despair. It's a reality check."We've got a lot of people making it out to 85 or 90," he said, but "100 isn't going to happen for most people."The study has ramifications for aging science too, because stagnation in the life expectancy curves means longevity scientists will need to develop new, creative tactics to deliver major life expectancy gains for humanity in the decades to come.<h2 id="99163054-58fd-4c5c-8dd8-67a69d0b77ff">There is still a lot we can do to live long lives</h2><div type="image" title="mick jagger" height="2031" width="3000" msid="114021008" hostid="261" sizebytes="345730"></div>Olshansky's new study includes data from the US, plus eight of the longest-living countries in the world (Australia, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland ) and the one place which, until very recently, consistently boasted the highest life expectancies on Earth (Hong Kong). The study tracks trends in their death rates and life expectancy from 1990 to 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic started.He says his projection doesn't mean that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/longevity-experts-eat-nordic-meals-salad-sourdough-moderation-2024-9">personal health choices</a> are unimportant."The first take-home message is: avoid the things that shorten life," he said. "One of the reasons <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-long-can-humans-live-with-without-medical-advancement-2023-4">why people often don't live as long as they can</a> is because they adopt unhealthy lifestyles."Some of the best anti-aging interventions we have today include healthy, vegetable and whole grain-heavy <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/blue-zones-expert-shares-cheap-longevity-supplements-beans-walnuts-2024-5">diets</a> combined with ample <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/longevity-trainer-fitness-markers-to-watch-for-a-longer-life-2024-7">exercise</a>.There is serious science suggesting that lifting weights can <a target="_blank" rel="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/improve-mobility-build-muscle-longevity-exercise-personal-trainer-2023-11">help you maintain mobility</a>, boost bone health, and reduce pain. Cardio like running, walking, swimming, and biking has benefits that go beyond just keeping your heart healthy or your blood pressure down. It can help protect the brain from <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/brisk-walking-reverse-brain-aging-in-older-adults-study-2023-6">cognitive decline</a> and lowers your risk of early death. Scientists often say that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tips-live-longer-eat-mediterranean-diet-exercise-2023-11/">exercise is the best anti-aging drug</a> we've found so far.<div type="image" title="An older man in a white T-shirt playing basketball." height="1414" width="2120" msid="114021011" hostid="261" sizebytes="115800"></div>A lot of what determines who makes it past the century mark comes down to genetic luck."When somebody says 'What's the best advice you can give to somebody on how to live to a hundred?' My answer is: choose long-lived parents," Olskansky said. "There's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/doctor-made-longevity-calculator-estimates-how-long-you-will-live-2023-4">a strong genetic component</a> of how long we can live, and we can't really control that. So control what you can control."<h2 id="527b2561-9ae9-4351-b9ed-e927261c8065">New ways to slow down aging</h2>Aging researchers generally agree that new tactics beyond traditional medicines, vaccines, and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supplement-expert-doesnt-take-supplements-eats-vegan-2023-11">supplements</a> will be needed to improve human health and longevity at very old ages."We've created a toolbox in medicine to go after one disease at a time," Olshansky said. In order to advance further, aging science "needs to go after the aging process itself," he said.Future advances could come from innovations in genetics, <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oxx-cXDZbg">cellular reprogramming</a>, and other areas of biology."Big breakthroughs in a technology only happens as a result of a lot of prior work that doesn't have any actual dramatic consequences, until it does," aging researcher Aubrey de Grey told Business Insider. De Grey says he is focused on "damage repair" interventions against aging and is studying regenerative medicine in mice that could lead to breakthroughs for <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/longevity-escape-velocity-what-is-it">human lifespan extension</a>. He's currently testing different combinations of stem cell treatments, drugs (including one that's a potential <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tech-titans-sam-altman-turning-to-anti-aging-drugs-2023-5">"zombie cell" killer</a>), and a gene therapy."The goal is to throw together enough of these to be able to essentially cover all the bases," he said.Physicist and aging researcher Peter Fedichev is another aging scientist who envisions paradigm shifts that could help slow down the aging process itself. His AI-based drug company, Gero, hasn't developed any treatments tested in people yet, but it's partnering with drug companies including Pfizer, working on research to develop new targets for fibrotic disease. "If we keep doing what we have been doing, the solution does not appear to be there," Fedichev told BI. "We need to decouple aging and diseases in our minds, and we should put effort into designing interventions against aging, to prevent that decline."

The human life span may have finally plateaued. Here's what you can do to optimize your chances for a long life — and what researchers are working on next.

This asteroid dirt might explain the origins of life on Earth

New York, Oct 27 (IANS) <keyword id="6436894" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="venus" source="Orion">Venus</keyword>, known as a scorching wasteland of a planet, may have once had tectonic plate movements similar to those believed to have occurred on early Earth, found a study indicating the possibility of hosting life. Using atmospheric data from Venus and computer modelling, a team of scientists from Brown University showed that Venus must have had plate tectonics sometime after the planet formed, about 4.5 billion to 3.5 billion years ago. This can account for the abundance of nitrogen and carbon dioxide present in Venus' atmosphere, they said, in the paper published in the journal <keyword id="3951856" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nature-astronomy" source="Orion">Nature Astronomy</keyword>. The composition of the planet's current atmosphere and surface pressure would only have been possible as a result of an early form of plate tectonics -- a process critical to life that involves multiple continental plates pushing, pulling and sliding beneath one another. On Earth, this process intensified over billions of years, forming new continents and mountains, and leading to chemical reactions that stabilised the planet's surface temperature, resulting in an environment more conducive to the development of life. Venus, on the other hand, Earth's nearest neighbour and sister planet, went in the opposite direction and today has surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead. One explanation is that the planet has always been thought to have what's known as a "stagnant lid," meaning its surface has only a single plate with minimal amounts of give, movement and gases being released into the atmosphere. The team posts that this wasn't always the case. The paper suggests that this early tectonic movement, like on Earth, would have been limited in terms of the number of plates moving and in how much they shifted. It also would have been happening on Earth and Venus simultaneously. "One of the big picture takeaways is that we very likely had two planets at the same time in the same solar system operating in a plate tectonic regime -- the same mode of tectonics that allowed for the life that we see on Earth today," said lead author <keyword id="12410616" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="matt-weller" source="Orion">Matt Weller</keyword>, who led the study while a postdoctoral researcher at Brown and is now at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. This bolsters the possibility of microbial life on ancient Venus and shows that at one point the two planets -- which are in the same solar neighbourhood, are about the same size, and have the same mass, density and volume -- were more alike than previously thought before diverging. The study also highlights the possibility that plate tectonics on planets might just come down to timing -- and therefore, so may life itself. "We've so far thought about tectonic state in terms of a binary: it's either true or it's false, and it's either true or false for the duration of the planet," said study co-author Alexander Evans, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown. "This shows that planets may transition in and out of different tectonic states and that this may actually be fairly common. Earth may be the outlier. This also means we might have planets that transition in and out of habitability rather than just being continuously habitable." That concept will be important to consider as scientists look to understand nearby moons -- like Jupiter's Europa, which has shown proof of having Earth-like plate tectonics -- and distant exoplanets, the paper said.

Venus has Earth-like plate tectonics, indicating possibility of hosting life once

<ul class="summary-list"><li>NASA launched Europa Clipper to see if <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oxygen-europa-life-surface-ocean-subsurface-earth-juno-mission-jupiter-2024-3">Jupiter's moon Europa</a> could host alien life.</li><li>Scientists think Europa contains a vast saltwater ocean deep beneath its surface.</li></ul><a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-nasa-could-tell-us-aliens-are-real-2023-2">NASA is serious about searching for alien life</a>, even within our own solar system.On Monday, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, the agency launched a spacecraft toward Europa, a moon of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/jupiter-images-webb-sees-rings-moons-hubble-cant-2022-8">Jupiter</a>.Scientists believe Europa contains a vast saltwater ocean deep beneath its icy crust, with twice as much water as Earth. It's perhaps the most promising place in our solar system for active <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-asks-help-retrieving-perseverance-mars-samples-alien-life-2024-4">extraterrestrial life</a>.<div type="image" title="Europa" height="1700" width="2300" msid="114225773" hostid="261" sizebytes="181080"></div>The NASA mission, called Europa Clipper, aims to figure out whether <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-lava-from-moon-volcanoes-creates-jupiters-powerful-aurora-lights-2022-2">the Jupiter moon</a> and its ocean could support life. It's the largest interplanetary spacecraft NASA has ever built. The probe is about 16 feet tall and, when its vast wings of solar arrays are deployed, 100 feet wide. It weighs three-and-a-half tons.Clipper is undertaking the first targeted exploration of an <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-underwater-rover-hunt-alien-life-on-ocean-worlds-2019-11">ocean world</a> beyond our planet.Even if there is no life on Europa, this mission is crucial in the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-no-contact-with-aliens-2019-9">search for alien life</a>, since ocean worlds across the galaxy are prime candidates for life.Missions like Europa Clipper are "modern cathedrals" and "generational quests," said Laurie Leshin, the director of <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-mars-helicopter-pilot-what-job-is-like-advice-2023-1">NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory</a>, which built the spacecraft.<div type="image" title="giant spacecraft folded up between red Airbus panels with a large round foil-covered piece on the front with technicians in blue clean suits standing nearby in a giant white clearnroom" height="1280" width="1920" msid="114225774" hostid="261" sizebytes="132976"></div>"We scientists have been dreaming about a mission like Europa Clipper for more than 20 years. We've been working to build it for 10 years," she added in a briefing about the mission in September. "It's going to be another 10 years, because <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/video-animation-planetary-scientist-huge-solar-system-2019-11">Jupiter's so far away</a>, until we have all the science in the bag."The spacecraft must travel 1.8 billion miles to get to Jupiter, getting a boost from Mars's gravity along the way. It's scheduled to arrive in April 2030.<h2 id="ccd765aa-2885-424c-ab06-309d5a9fdb77">A 7-body problem and unfathomable radiation</h2>Life exists without sunlight at the bottom of the ocean here on Earth. All it needs is an energy source, like hydrothermal vents which release heat from deep within the planet, and organic molecules containing essential elements like carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen.Europa Clipper is carrying nine scientific instruments to look for the fingerprints of those molecules, measure the salinity and depth of the underground ocean, and take photos of Europa down to one meter of resolution, among other things.<div type="image" title="illustration of a spacecraft with long wings of solar panels above a white moon covered in crisis crossed brown lines with jupiter in the distant background in space" height="1121" width="1995" msid="114225771" hostid="261" sizebytes="107104"></div>"Clipper is not actually going to look for life itself, but it's going to characterize the habitability of Europa," Gina DiBraccio, the acting director of NASA's Planetary Science Division, said in the briefing.The mission is designed to orbit Jupiter and fly past Europa 49 times, each time soaring over a different area to eventually cover almost the entire moon, pole to pole. The spacecraft will skim as close as 16 miles above Europa's surface.The mission plan is a marvel of engineering. Rather than a three-body problem, falling into orbit around Jupiter is a "seven-body problem" because of the planet's large moons, Jordan Evans, the mission's project manager, said in the briefing.During each flyby, Clipper will bathe in radiation from Jupiter that's equivalent to "a few million chest X-rays," Evans added.It might even find out if Europa's ice really <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-jupiter-oceanic-moon-europa-radioactive-glow-2020-11">glows in the dark from that radiation</a>, as NASA research has previously indicated.

You Searched For "life on Earth" and got 6 results

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