Europa Clipper Captures Uranus with Star Tracker Camera
NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft captured a remarkable image of the planet Uranus on November 5, 2025. This image was taken while the spacecraft was testing one of its two stellar reference units, which are star-tracking cameras used to maintain the spacecraft’s orientation in space. The photo shows a starfield with Uranus appearing as a larger dot near the left side of the image. The camera’s field of view covers only 0.1% of the entire sky surrounding the spacecraft.
The image includes an annotated version, known as Figure A, which labels Uranus along with several background stars. Additionally, Figure B is an animated GIF created from two images taken about 10 hours apart. In this animation, Uranus can be seen moving slightly relative to the fixed background stars, demonstrating the spacecraft’s ability to track celestial objects over time.
Details of the Europa Clipper Mission and Its Journey
At the time these images were captured, Europa Clipper was approximately 2 billion miles (3.2 billion kilometers) away from Uranus. The spacecraft is currently on its way to the Jupiter system, where it will study Europa, one of Jupiter’s icy moons. Europa Clipper launched in October 2024 and is scheduled to arrive at Jupiter in 2030.
Once in the Jupiter system, the mission will conduct around 50 flybys of Europa. The primary scientific goal is to determine if there are regions beneath Europa’s icy surface that could potentially support life. To achieve this, the mission focuses on three main objectives: measuring the thickness of Europa’s icy shell and understanding how it interacts with the ocean beneath, investigating the moon’s composition, and characterizing its geology.
Significance of Europa Clipper Captures Uranus
The fact that Europa Clipper captures Uranus during its journey highlights the spacecraft’s advanced navigation and imaging capabilities. These star-tracking cameras are essential for maintaining precise orientation, which is critical for the success of the mission’s detailed exploration of Europa.
By studying Europa in such detail, scientists hope to gain insights into the moon’s potential habitability and the broader astrobiological possibilities for life beyond Earth. The data collected will help researchers better understand the conditions that might allow life to exist on icy worlds in our solar system.
For more information about the Europa Clipper mission and the moon Europa, visit NASA’s official page at https://science.nasa.gov/mission/europa-clipper/.
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Source: original article.