(countdown in French)
(spacecraft engine roars)
(scientist speaks French)
- This spacecraft is embarking on an eight year journey
to study Jupiter and three of its largest moons.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, also known as JUICE
is on a mission to characterize what makes a world habitable
so it can sustain life in our solar system.
- Are we really so special in the cosmos
that earth is the only place that can support life forms?
Here's a look at what JUICE will explore
once it arrives at its destination and what it might reveal
about the search for life in outer space.
The JUICE mission is led by the European Space Agency
partnering with other space agencies across the world,
including those in the US, Japan, and Israel.
On board, the spacecraft carries a suite
of 10 scientific instruments,
making it the most powerful payload
flown to the outer solar system.
Those instruments include a camera system.
They include a radar system that can penetrate
several miles into the surface.
They're bringing a laser altimeter,
which will sort of help them create a 3D map.
- Any spacecraft headed into outer space
will face challenges, from navigating the asteroid belt
to a long roundabout journey.
But, JUICE was designed to withstand
some of the universe's extremes, including radiation,
and harsh temperatures.
On its journey, JUICE will encounter
nearly 500 degree temperatures around Venus,
and close to minus 400 degree temperatures near Jupiter.
When they build these instruments,
they not only need to ensure that they can deliver
on the science that's proposed, like,
they're sensitive enough and calibrated enough
to identify differences in magnetic fields and things,
but also need to survive the journey, right?
You can't send the plumber to go fix the instruments.
JUICE which weighs about 10 tons,
must first complete flybys of Earth, the Moon, and Venus,
so it can adjust its trajectory and gain enough speed.
It was challenging to design the spacecraft
because it has to take such a, sort of, long journey
to get to Jupiter.
By the time JUICE reaches its destination in July of 2031,
the spacecraft will have traveled nearly 4 billion miles.
Sitting nearly 450 million miles away from Earth,
Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system,
more than twice as massive
as all the other planets combined.
One of the NASA scientists
described Jupiter's planetary neighborhood as, sort of like,
the Disneyland, Universal, and Six-Flags of the solar system
all rolled into one.
The planet is mostly composed of gases,
like hydrogen and helium, and has a powerful magnetic field
that affects thousands of objects in its orbit.
JUICE will, in part, study this atmosphere
to understand how the harsh environment
shapes the conditions on its surrounding moons.
Among nearly 100 moons orbiting Jupiter,
three of the largest Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto,
are all thought to possibly harbor oceans of liquid water
beneath their icy crusts.
After previous missions shed light on what lies beneath
the surface.
JUICE's Radar instrument will, sort of,
help scientists peer under the surface.
It might help them understand how thick the ice is,
above what is potentially a subsurface ocean.
It might also help reveal
whether or not this ocean is salty.
Scientists will look for liquid water, a heat source,
and organic materials on these moons,
which are among the ingredients needed to sustain life.
It's likely gonna be microbes.
We're we're not looking at aliens
living under the ocean surface.
It could also be maybe more advanced species,
sort of similar to what we might find near deep sea vents
in our own oceans on Earth.
- While JUICE can't detect life, the mission is a step
toward identifying whether these ingredients exist
elsewhere in our solar system.
The JUICE mission is expected to collect about four years
of data, before ending in 2035,
but it's not the only spacecraft observing Jupiter
and it's surrounding moons.
NASA is also sending a mission to Europa next year,
named Europa Clipper.
That mission will arrive in 2030,
and will observe the moon at the same time as JUICE.
Space Science has matured over the past couple of decades,
and really honed in on Jupiter
and to look for those other life forms,
and JUICE is a key requisite
to really making that objective a reality.
There's no promise that we'll detect life on these moons
but if we don't look and see
whether or not they're potentially habitable
we won't actually ever get the answer.
(upbeat rhythmic music)