NASA spacecraft reaches closest point to Jupiter's moon Europa
 NASA spacecraft reaches closest point to Jupiter's moon Europa 11324
The US space agency announced that its Juno spacecraft had reached its closest point in two decades to Jupiter's moon Europa.
The spacecraft approached more than 350 kilometers from this icy moon, whose thick, frozen crust contains huge amounts of water under it, which increases the possibility of the existence of underwater life.
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Juno has reached its closest point in two decades to Jupiter's moon - Associated Press
The spacecraft was able to capture several clear images of this moon. Scientists hoped to capture a picture of "frozen water columns" appearing on the surface of the moon, Europa, but they did not appear in the captured images.
In this context, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, explained in a statement that such shots are possible if the craft is present at exactly the right time and place.
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In turn, John Purdy, assistant mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, revealed that the Juno spacecraft was traveling at a relative speed of less than 24 kilometers per second (23.6 kilometers per second).
One of the pictures of "Europe" showed an area that includes hills, and what looks like an "impact crater" that hit the moon.
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These images help the space agency "NASA" in planning its mission, which will be launched in 2024, to reach the "Jovian space system" of Jupiter in 2030, which includes dozens of its satellites.
The Galileo spacecraft was able to approach Europa in 2000, when it was 351 kilometers away.





 
Source: agencies