Europa Clipper: Spacecraft blasts off to hunt alien life on a distant moon

Getty ImagesA spacecraft that will hunt for signs of alien life on one of Jupiter’s icy moons has blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida.Nasa launched the spacecraft at 12:06 local time (16:06 GMT) after hurricane Milton forced the mission to postpone plans last week.Europa Clipper will now travel 1.8 billion miles to reach Europa, a deeply mysterious moon orbiting Jupiter.It will not arrive until 2030 but what it finds could change what we know about life in our solar system.Trapped under the moon’s surface could be a vast ocean with double the amount of water on Earth.The spacecraft is chasing a European mission that left last year, but using a cosmic piggyback, it will overtake and arrive first.Getty ImagesThe spacecraft has been developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in CaliforniaA moon five times brighter than oursYears in the making, the Europa Clipper launch was delayed at the last minute after hurricane Milton blasted Florida this week.The spacecraft was rushed…