Should we leave them alone? Yesterday the Europa Clipper probe set out to visit one of Jupiter’s moons, with some scientists hoping that it will find evidence of life.
Blast off for alien-hunter spaceship
Lift off: A European mission set off to Europa last year, but the Nasa clipper will arrive first (in the year 2030) by using a cosmic piggyback. Glossary
Nasa - The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, responsible for the US space programme.
BST - British Summer Time.
Jupiter - The largest planet in our solar system. It is a gas giant.
James Webb Space Telescope - A high resolution space telescope that overtook the capabilities of the Hubble telescope. It was launched in December 2021.
SpaceX - Founded in 2002 by South African entrepreneur Elon Musk, SpaceX's mission is to reduce the cost of space transportation to make possible the colonisation of Mars.
Galaxy - A system of millions or billions of stars, gas and dust, held together by gravitational attraction.
Elon Musk - A South African-born entrepreneur whose companies have included the online payment service PayPal. He now controls Twitter, renamed 'X'.