European space mission to search for life on Jupiter

The European Space Agency (ESA) is determined to find out if there is life on Jupiter. The Juice mission is in the starting blocks and the ESA spacecraft is about to launch to explore the largest planet in the solar system and its three largest moons. The probe will be in Jupiter’s sphere in eight years, and in 2034 it will be the first human spacecraft to orbit another planet’s moon.

Operation Juice, short for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, will not only perform detailed observations of the gas giant, but will focus above all on the study of its largest moons, Callisto, Europa and Ganymede. Particular attention is directed to the oceans hidden underground and the potential habitability of the environment covered by the frozen crust.

The launch, scheduled for tomorrow (Friday 14, link to follow live here), will take place from the ESA spaceport in French Guiana using the Ariane 5 rocket, which launched NASA’s James Webb space telescope in 2021. The eight-year journey to Jupiter will begin with three flights of Earth and one flyby of Venus, which will serve to use the gravitational aids of the two planets to gain speed and launch toward the target approximately 900 million kilometers from Earth.

As Euronews reports, Juice will orbit Jupiter until July 2031 and will pass by its moons several times from then until the end of its mission in 2035. According to estimates, we will have to wait until 2034 for the largest satellite, Ganymede, to enter its orbit.

Among other things, the mission aims to provide a careful description of the planet and its mechanisms in order to understand how other systems of the universe work. The mission will shed light on how the systems of other gas giants in the universe work by exploring how the atmosphere, magnetism, moons and dusty rings interact with each other. In addition, chemistry, structure, weather and climate will be examined, as well as an attempt to understand how an atmosphere without a solid planet under it works.

The focus will be on Ganymede, the largest of the three moons under study, and also the ninth object with the largest surface area in the entire solar system. One of the main points of the research will be that Juice, which will orbit about 500 kilometers above the ground, is the only one that can create its own magnetic field. However, when the spacecraft flies over Europa, it will look for any biosignals and pockets of water, as this satellite has the potential to emit water vapor into space. Finally, the mission will make 21 close flights to Callisto, one of which is just 200 kilometers from the surface, to get a closer look at what is thought to contain a salty ocean below the surface.

Collectively, the three moons are thought to contain an enormous amount of water, which can be up to six times the volume of water in the Earth’s oceans. Also, as previous missions have collected evidence of geological activity on the planets, Juice will now look for any geological activity.

The spacecraft will have 10 instruments to carry out its work. One of them, 3gm, is a radio package that will study Ganymede’s gravitational field and the structure of Jupiter’s ionosphere. Among the instruments is the Majis, a spectrometer that will study the properties of clouds on the planet and analyze ice and minerals on lunar surfaces. The J-mag magnetometer will be used to study the subterranean oceans, while radar, UV imaging spectrograph, optical camera system and laser altimeter will also make a series of measurements.

After its launch in 2011, the mission sends the first probe to Jupiter after Juno, which has been orbiting the planet since 2016. Another spacecraft, however, is expected to reach Jupiter before ESA’s Europa Clipper NASA. This is expected to enter the orbit of the planet Jupiter in 2030 and then spend five years studying it to determine if conditions are suitable to support life.

Source: Today IT

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