When will a mission to assess the possibility of life on Jupiter's moons reach the planet?


The European Space Agency (ESA) has launched a new space mission to investigate Jupiter's moons. 
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission launched from French Guiana on 14 April 2023. The mission's satellite is currently on its way to the Solar System's largest planet to investigate if its moons have the capacity to support life. 
One of the most vexing issues regarding space is whether or not the Solar System contains extraterrestrial life. 
A new ESA mission to Jupiter is hoping to find evidence that other celestial bodies in the Solar System could contain life. The Juice mission will launch from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, and will travel to the moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. 
Dr Helena Bates, a space researcher at the Museum who isn't engaged with the expedition, says, 'The Juice mission is exploring some of the most exciting bodies in the Solar System when it comes to the potential to support life.' 
'It's a truly incredible mission that, I believe, will revolutionize our knowledge of habitability in our Solar System.' 
Jupiter's moons have been identified as having some of the highest potential for life support because some of them have liquid seas of water beneath their frozen surface. 
ESA's Director of Science is Professor Carole Mundell. 'In every extreme condition on Earth, whether that's high acidity, high radioactivity, low temperature, hot temperature - we find microbial life in some form,' she told the BBC. 
'When you look at the vents at the bottom of the Earth's seas, they almost appear to be extraterrestrial worlds. There's no reason why such microbial life couldn't exist elsewhere provided the conditions are identical. And it is these conditions that we wish to investigate using Juice. 

What is the mission's goal? 

The Juice mission is ESA's most recent big project, and it aims to examine Jupiter's moons to see if they are habitable. 
The satellite will make 35 trips within 400 kilometers of three of Jupiter's moons: Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. It will eventually enter orbit above Ganymede, where the ten scientific instruments on board will take images, analyze the surface, and map subsurface characteristics. 
Scientists will have an unprecedented account of the moons' secret waters, notably on Ganymede, based on the comprehensive measurements gathered. The devices will be able to show not just the depth of the oceans, but also their salt content, the depth of the crust, and even whether or not the water is in contact with the crust. 
These moons are regarded to be a good possibility for life if it exists someplace in the Solar System. 

Credit: Planet Volumes/Unsplash. 

'Even though the Jovian system is far farther from the Sun and temperatures are much colder, some of Jupiter's moons are thought to have liquid water oceans,' Helena explains. 'Because Jupiter is so massive, it generates tremendously intense tidal pressures that strain and squeeze its moons.' 
'This process creates heat, which we believe is sufficient to melt the ice on these moons into liquid water. This is especially significant because life exists anywhere there is liquid water on Earth. So it's not a stretch to imagine that if there's liquid water on Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, there could be life as well.' 
To approach Jupiter, the satellite will take a roundabout route. Because the Arianne-5 rocket attached to the satellite lacks the power to send it directly to Jupiter in a useful timeframe, it will first travel around the inner Solar System, performing flybys of both Venus and Earth in order to gain enough gravitational boost to sling it further out towards Jupiter. 
This is projected to take the spacecraft around eight years, with the satellite arriving at its final location around July 2031. 

By Covenant 

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