$1.4 billion probe
The spacecraft will be launched from the European Space Agency launch site in French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket, the same type that launched NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2021.
The Juice mission, which stands for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, will take eight years to reach the planet.
Why is the European Space Agency flying to Jupiter?
The short answer is the search for life, or evidence that life once existed.
The icy moons of Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede are thought to contain liquid oceans that may contain more water than Earth’s oceans.
Given that water is a major component of life here on Earth, scientists say these moons may represent the best hope for extraterrestrial life in this solar system. The water is under the ice but can still support life.
“Given Jupiter’s icy moons, we have good reason to believe there is more water than on Earth,” said Olivier Vitasse, mission project scientist.
The idea that the best chance of finding extraterrestrial life is on Jupiter’s icy moons seemed unlikely until a few decades ago. Back then, Venus and Mars were considered the best hopes for finding life in the solar system far from Earth.
But since then, the surface temperature of Venus has apparently been 475°C, and Mars lost its atmosphere and surface water billions of years ago. Attempts to find surviving underground reserves on the Red Planet have so far been unsuccessful.
Huge reserves of water have now been discovered on Jupiter’s moons.
“The need for liquid water has led the search for life in our solar system to be focused on planets closer to the sun. But now we know that solar heat is not the only way to create liquid water,” said a spokesman for Imperial College London, who is involved in the mission.
“Under the icy crust of the moons orbiting Jupiter are liquid oceans. As the largest moons orbit Jupiter and pass each other, they expand and contract under gravity, heating them up and melting some of the ice.”
Will it find life?
While it offers a relatively good chance of life, this is extremely difficult to tell in the context of the solar system.
However, British astronaut Tim Peak, among others, has cautious hopes.
“Personally, I am convinced that somewhere there is life. We have identified 50 billion stars in this galaxy alone that probably have habitable zone planets. Considering that there could be up to 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe, the chances that the Earth will be the only planet capable of supporting life, in my opinion, are extremely small. The launch of Juice is an important step towards unraveling the hidden mysteries of the universe.”
Will the mission do something else?
The mission also aims to create the best image of Jupiter as an archetype for other gas giants in the universe.
The complex system, Jupiter’s atmosphere, magnetism, moons and dust rings interact with each other, and by figuring out how these components work together, the mission will shed light on what other gas giant galaxies look like.
How far is Jupiter?
Jupiter is on average 444 million miles from Earth, a journey that will take eight years. But the data it will be transmitting from 2031 hope to give a “spectacular” insight into how life reached the solar system. But patience is a virtue in this game, says Michelle Dougherty, professor of space physics at Imperial College London.
“Space missions are long and slow, so the launch marks only half of that mission – because we first thought about it 15 years ago, and the final data will be in 15 years… But we think the results will be spectacular.”
Are British scientists involved in the project?
Experts from Imperial College London have led the development of a magnetometer, known as the J-Mag, that will measure the properties of the magnetic fields of Jupiter and its largest moon, Ganymede.
It will also play a key role in detecting moving salts in the oceans under Ganymede’s ice crust and studying Jupiter’s other moons, Europa and Callisto.
In addition to J-Mag, the Leicester scientists will also be collaborating with other experts on two other instruments on Juice: Majis (Moon and Jupiter Imaging Spectrometer), which will observe cloud and atmospheric features on Jupiter; and UVS (UV Imaging Spectrograph), which will characterize the composition and dynamics of the exospheres of icy satellites.
The Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London also provided particle detectors for the Juice Pep (Particle Environment Package) instrument, which will collect data on the “soup” of ions, electrons and atoms around Jupiter and its moons.
Source: I News
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