With the clock ticking down to the historic launch of NASA's Europa Clipper mission to survey the mysterious frozen moon of Jupiter, a 1.8-billion-mile voyage that will take five-and-a-half years to complete, now is the perfect time to immerse our minds with visions of that life-promising satellite and its famous gas giant homeworld.
NASA is currently looking at a blastoff no earlier than 12:06 p.m. EDT, Monday, Oct. 14, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With its silicate rock composition encased in a water-ice crust, Europa is the sixth largest moon in our solar system and it's been long speculated that its salt-water oceans underneath the barren frozen surface could potentially harbor some form of life. You can watch the Europa Clipper launch live online, and check out our Europa Clipper live updates for the latest on the mission.
Hollywood sci-fi flicks have long had an interest in Jupiter and especially the frosty moon of Europa as a place suitable for the formation of biological compounds, so it's naturally been a showcase destination in a handful of worthwhile feature films.
Let's ease into our comfy hibernation pods and launch into this imaginative cinematic trip highlighting four adventurous Jupiter-aimed movies.
"Jupiter Ascending" (2015)
While not focusing directly on the gas giant Jupiter or its chilly moon of Europa, 2015's "Jupiter Ascending" is an overindulgent 2015 sci-fi film directed by The Wachowskis of "The Matrix Trilogy" fame starring Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis.
Tatum seems awkwardly miscast as Caine, a genetically engineer elf-like hunter, while Kunis does her best playing Jupiter Jones, an Earth-bound housekeeper with a destiny of galactic royalty. Eddie Redmayne plays the villainous Balem Abrasax, a ruthless aristocrat who lords over a massive refinery operation located in Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Visually arresting, often mildly confusing, yet containing some spectacular set pieces.
Related: 4 Fun Ways 'Jupiter Ascending' Shows Off Space Science
"Europa Report" (2013)
"Europa Report," an ambitious 2013 found footage film directed by Sebastián Cordero, was a huge financial flop but it nevertheless contains some intriguing sequences and genuine terror in its tale of the first crewed flight to the Jupiter moon Europa.
When earlier probes indicate that a hidden ocean with single-celled alien life turns up on Jupiter's fourth largest Galilean moon, a crew of six astronauts are sent on an exploratory trip to Europa that ultimately goes terribly wrong. Filled with compelling hard science and some suspenseful moments, "Europa Report" is a low-budget endeavor well worth the watch and the prefect primer for the Europa Clipper mission.
Related: 'Europa Report' Uses Science to Show Space Travel Perils
"2010: The Year We Make Contact" (1984)
"All these world are yours, except for Europa." Thus reads a warning received by some extraterrestrial intelligence at the conclusion of "2010: The Year We Make Contact," a criminally-underrated sequel to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey."
Adapted from Arthur C. Clarke's novel "2010: Odyssey Two" and starring Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, and John Lithgow, director Peter Hyam's 1984 film centers around joint American-Russian mission back to the Jovian system. Their goal is to learn the fate of the Discovery spaceship sent out nine years earlier to investigate a radio transmission beamed from a monolith discovered on Earth's moon, and to bring the homicidal HAL-9000 back online.
Life is detected on the frozen moon of Europa and the movie ends with Jupiter becoming a newborn star and Europa evolving into a fertile green world.
"Outland" (1981)
One of Sean Connery's most grossly underappreciated films, "Outland" is also directed by the great Peter Hyams and its gritty R-rated plot is essentially "High Noon in Space."
After Connery's mining colony police marshal on the Jupiter moon Io stumbles across a drug-running conspiracy, a hit squad is dispatched from Earth to take him. But he'll get no support from most of the corporate workers hooked on the illegal narcotics and he prepares for an Old West-like showdown as a ticking clock marks the hours until the assassins' arrival.
It's an atmospheric thriller with excellent performances and a visual style sure to please hardcore sci-fi fans.
