A new chapter in the search for extraterrestrial life is to open today as Europe’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft blasts off on a mission to investigate the icy moons of Jupiter.
First discovered by Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei more than 400 years ago, the ice-covered moons are so far from the sun that they were long dismissed as possible candidates to host life.
Until recently, the solar system’s habitable zone was thought to “end at Mars,” said French astrophysicist Athena Coustenis, one of the scientific leads of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) JUICE mission.
Photo: AFP
However, NASA’s Galileo probe to Jupiter in 1995 and the more recent Cassini spacecraft’s trip to Saturn caused scientists to broaden their horizons.
The gas giant planets themselves were ruled out, but their icy moons — particularly Jupiter’s Europa and Ganymede, and Saturn’s Enceladus and Titan — offered fresh hope of nearby life.
Under their icy surfaces are thought to be huge oceans of liquid water.
Nicolas Altobelli, a JUICE project scientist at the ESA, said it would be “the first time that we explore habitats beyond the frost line” between Mars and Jupiter.
Beyond that line, temperatures plummet and “liquid water can no longer exist on the surface,” Altobelli told reporters earlier this year.
The JUICE mission is to launch from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, today on an eight-year odyssey through space.
By July 2031 it is to enter Jupiter’s orbit, from which it would probe Ganymede, Europa and fellow icy moon Callisto.
Then, in 2034, JUICE would enter the orbit of Ganymede, the first time a spacecraft has done so around a moon other than the Earth’s.
As well as being the largest moon in the solar system, Ganymede is also the only one that has its own magnetic field, which shields it from radiation.
This is just one of several signs that Ganymede’s hidden ocean could provide a stable environment for life.
Unlike similar missions to Mars, which focus on finding signs of ancient life long since extinguished, scientists hope Jupiter’s icy moons will still be home to living organisms, even if only tiny or single-celled.
Such habitability requires a power source. Lacking energy from the sun, the moons could instead take advantage of the gravity that Jupiter exerts on its satellites.
The force creates a process called tidal heating, which warms the interior of the moons and keeps their water liquid.
Ganymede’s “gigantic” liquid ocean is trapped between two thick layers of ice dozens of kilometres beneath the surface, said Carole Larigauderie, JUICE project head at French space agency CNES.
“On Earth, we still find life forms at the bottom of the abyss,” Larigauderie said.
Tiny microbes such as bacteria and archaea have been found to be able to survive on Earth without sunlight, raising hopes that life elsewhere will be able to do the same.
As well as water and energy, life needs nutrients.
“The big question is therefore whether Ganymede’s ocean contains” the necessary chemical elements, Coustenis said.
JUICE’s array of instruments would probe Ganymede’s ocean to determine its depth, distance from the surface and its composition.
It would not be the only spacecraft lurking around Jupiter.
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is scheduled to launch in October next year. It has a quicker path planned to Jupiter, arriving at Europa in 2030.
If one or more of Jupiter’s moons ticks all the boxes to host life, the “logical next step” would be to send a mission to land on the surface, said Cyril Cavel, JUICE project manager at manufacturer Airbus.
Although there are no plans for such a mission, “that’s part of the dream,” Cavel said.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
RSS