ALIEN life on Jupiter’s moons
The European Space Agency’s mission to find alien life on Jupiter’s moons
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, better known as Juice, is an eight-year quest seeking alien life on Jupiter’s icy moons. Its journey, beginning with a launch from French Guiana, will include flybys of Earth and Venus. Here’s what you need to know.
A space mission with a name like no other is about to embark on a journey to find alien life on the moons of Jupiter.
Juice (that’s short for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) is a European Space Agency (ESA) venture to make unprecedentedly detailed observations of the gas giant.
It will include searching its icy moons – Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, which each have their own oceans – to find out whether they could have supported life, and maybe if they still do.
As the final countdown to launch approaches, here’s everything you need to know about humanity’s latest quest to explore the stars.
When and where is the launch?
Juice is planned to launch at 1.15pm UK time on Thursday.
It will be fired skyward aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the ESA’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.
So yes, it’s not actually launching from Europe, but rather a French territory on the north coast of South America.
A livestream of the launch will begin around half an hour before the blast-off time, so you can get swept up in the excitement before the real action begins.
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If the timings go to plan, Juice will separate from the upper stage of Ariane 5 at 1.42pm UK time, and should send its first signal down to the Earth’s surface by 1.51pm, allowing mission crews to take control of the craft.
How long will the mission go on for?
Quite some time, you certainly won’t be tuning in for a livestream of the entire mission.
Juice’s total cruise time will be eight years and include flybys of Earth and Venus on its way to Jupiter, where it will make close encounters with its three moons.
They will be observed using remote sensing and geophysical tools, as well as equipment on the craft.
Jupiter itself will also be closely examined, with astronomers hoping that knowledge gained about its complex magnetic, radiation, and plasma environment will help inform studies of other gas giants.
One of which is Saturn, another gas giant with moons boasting oceans that could support life. Such worlds have the greatest known reserves of water outside Earth, and Juice is the first mission to explore them.
The ESA will be assisted in its work by NASA, and the space agencies of Japan and Israel.
