On Monday, October 14, 2024 NASA launched the Europa Clipper mission on a six-year journey to Europa, a moon of Jupiter that may be hospitable to life as we know it. Europa is one of the four moons of Jupiter discovered by Galileo in 1610.

Dr. Payne (1900-1979) was a British-American astronomer and astrophysicist. In 1925, contrary to scientific thinking, Dr. Payne proposed that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Years later, her compositional and spectral analyses of our Sun, the stars and the Earth weredemonstrated and accepted. Her work on the cosmic make up of our Universe laid the foundationfor modern astrophysics.