If there is life anywhere in our solar system, Jupiter’s large icy moons are a pretty good bet on where life will be found.
Scientists believe that vast oceans lurk within, kept liquid by the surge from Jupiter’s enormous gravitational field, and protected from the planet’s harsh radiation belts by thick ice sheets. “What we have learned on Earth is where is water and where is life,” says Powell of Mark Fox of the Open University in England. “Looking across the solar system, [liquid] Currently water is confined to the Earth and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The latter planet and its moons have been studied in detail by NASA and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Cassini-Huygens mission from 2004 to 2017 and still hold a secret for scientists to investigate someday. All eyes are on Jupiter for now.
The mission to visit our solar system’s largest planet will be ESA’s JUICE spacecraft, Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer. The 6-ton spacecraft, currently being tested in France, is scheduled to launch on a European Ariane 5 rocket in April this year and will be shipped to French Guiana in South America. JUICE will take eight years to reach Jupiter, saving fuel along the way with gravitational help from Earth, Venus and Mars. The solar-powered spacecraft, which arrived in July 2031, will focus its 10 scientific instruments on three of Jupiter’s four largest moons: Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. I plan to let you. However, Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, will be the center of attention for JUICE. After initial reconnaissance, the rover is scheduled to enter orbit in her 2034.
Of course, ESA isn’t the only space agency with Jupiter in sight, but recent history mostly suggests otherwise. The concept that would eventually become JUICE came out in 2008 as part of a joint venture with NASA called the Europa Jupiter System Mission (EJSM). The collaboration required Europe to build a Ganymede-focused spacecraft, and NASA would build a Europa rover. But funding issues in the US forced NASA to unplug her EJSM in the early 2010s, leaving Europe to fly alone. (NASA’s Juno spacecraft currently operates on Jupiter, but focuses more on gas giants than on its moons.) Maryland Research Institute (JHUAPL), a member of the US proposal team. “It killed parts of Europa.” The situation was unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected. Michele Dougherty of his Imperial College London, who worked on the European side of EJSM, said:
The redemption took place in 2013 when NASA’s Europa exploration efforts received new support and funding from Congress. Initially called the Europa Multiple Her Flyby Mission, the US project eventually became the Europa Clipper, named after the 19th-century “Clipper” merchant ship. An international collaboration reborn, albeit in a watered-down form. Prockter estimates that about 70% of the originally planned collaborations are still possible, but he says, “It’s been significantly reduced.”
Clipper is scheduled to launch on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket in the fall of 2024. Despite the later launch date, the more powerful rocket will allow Clipper to reach Jupiter more than a year earlier than her JUICE in April 2030. Due to Jupiter’s proximity to Jupiter, it will not orbit Europa like Ganymede. Within Jupiter’s radiation belt. Instead, JUICE will perform about 50 Europa-his flybys as it orbits the Jupiter system, mapping the moon’s interior so that it can calculate the extent of its subsurface ocean while surveying other targets. to Curt Neibur, his program scientist for the Europa Clipper at his NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., said: Instead, I realized I could fly, collect data, and get out of less radioactive towns. ”
moon hopping and plume spotting
During overlapping missions, JUICE and Clipper perform intricate tangos as they shuttle between Jupiter’s attractions, providing plenty of opportunities for collaboration. Olivier Witasse of his ESA, JUICE’s project scientist, said: About 20 scientists from both missions now meet almost weekly as part of her JUICE-Clipper steering committee, and the group says he’ll discuss how the two spacecraft will synchronize on Jupiter. formulating ideas for “We’re busy discussing and planning scientific opportunities to present to NASA and ESA,” says Bunce, who co-chairs the committee with Prockter. “Some of the details are a little different” from his first EJSM collaboration, Bunce says, but the original dream still lives on. “The original plan was to have a Ganymede-focused mission and another Europa-focused mission,” she says. “And that’s what we have.”
One possibility is that each spacecraft acts as a spotter for the others. For example, JUICE can watch Europa from afar while Clipper prepares to swoop down. Europa’s subsurface ocean, like Saturn’s moon Enceladus, is thought to occasionally erupt liquid water from cracks in the ice above it. Peeking into these plumes could lead to studies of oceanic ejecta just “minutes ago,” he says, Fox-Powell. “It really gives you an opportunity to study the pristine.” When Clipper gets close to Europa, JUICE can look for plumes erupting from the surface, allowing Clipper to look in that direction. . “If JUICE finds one, he knows where to look,” says Prorockter. Clippers even pass through some volcanic plumes by chance, allowing them to be sampled directly for complex molecular signatures that could suggest signs of life in the European seas.
JUICE will also perform two unique Europa flybys before orbiting Ganymede. In one of them, July 2032, he is only four hours away from the Clipper flyby. “We can do similar measurements at the same time,” he says. The exact details have yet to be determined, but this could lead to some interesting science. “We won’t be flying in the same place, but I’m sure it will be very interesting,” he adds. “You can image similar surface features or, if there is a plume, you can observe it from a different shape.”
The joint emphasis on Europa is due to scientists’ suspicion that the moon’s liquid water oceans are in direct contact with the rocky core. There, hydrothermal vents (openings in the ocean floor through which heat from the depths can escape) can provide enough energy and nutrients to sustain life. There are vents and whole communities of organisms,” he says Fox-Powell. “There is good reason to believe that similar chemistry is taking place on Europa.” It means that there is a possibility. “It could seal the core of the rock,” he says Fox-Powell. “Europa isn’t big enough to have that much gravity and pressure, so high-pressure ice doesn’t form.”
Two months, two missions, one vision
This does not rule out the possibility of Ganymede’s habitability, nor does it detract from the moon’s scientific interest. Injected into orbit around Ganymede in December 2034, his JUICE will survey the entire lunar surface and study the lunar magnetic field. “Making an environment interesting for potential habitability requires a heat source, liquid water, organic material, and stability,” he says. “On Enceladus, we know there are three. On Europa, we have three. On his JUICE will descend to 200 kilometers above the lunar surface. Ultimately, at the end of the mission in 2035, the spacecraft will intentionally crash into the surface to minimize the chances of debris contaminating Europa. Ganymede is not believed to have plume activity, but if it does, or if its ice crust turns out to be particularly thin, we should rethink this finale so as not to contaminate Ganymede’s liquid oceans either. Giuseppe Sarri, Project Manager for JUICE at ESA, said:
Clipper, on the other hand, offers a similar level of knowledge about Europa and its oceans. It’s not for finding definitive evidence of life, but instead, at best, looking at the components of life within the moon’s plume. The detection of life may come true in later missions, such as NASA’s very popular Europalander. The mission concept was created years ago by a scientist and engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, but is awaiting further funding. “Europa has not been in presidential budgets or budgets passed by parliament for some time,” he says. Meanwhile, a definitive roadmap for US interplanetary exploration produced by the US National Academy in late 2021 has made the Europa landing mission a lower priority for NASA than other projects. For now, the work is archived, ready and waiting to be reborn. “I’m sure Europa his Clipper learning will make us want to go back. A lander of some sort is the logical next step,” he says Neibur. . “But maybe Clippers throw curveballs at us and landers aren’t the right way to go. Maybe they want to hover in the plume instead of landing.”
Breaking through several kilometers of ice presents its own set of challenges. One possibility is that the lander could contain a thermal probe for blending into Europa’s hidden ocean. led an experiment to simulate the surface of Europa using a 2-meter-tall cryogenic ice column called the . Presenting her findings at the 241st American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle in early January, she found that the work could take her three to 13 years. Besides the ticking clock, there are many other obstacles. “Finding out how to cable power and information between the lander and the rover is a huge problem that needs to be solved in the next few years,” says Pereira. The lander would likely have to carry several kilometers’ worth of cable, and the probe would need to be resilient enough to withstand the surrounding water refreezing into ice during descent. However, the scientific value of solving such problems is immeasurable.
Such a dream is many years ahead. Any hope of making them a reality hinges on a voyage to Jupiter and confirming what we believe its icy moon is an attractive target. Clipper, more than ever, is trying to unlock the secrets of the Jupiter system, which resembles many of the exoplanet systems found around other stars. “This is a small solar system,” he says Sarri. “We’re looking for habitats that could potentially sustain life.” There is no Earth-like world in our solar system, but perhaps places like Europa and Ganymede are a close second, he said. It’s the second. If life can survive here, who knows where else it will thrive?
