In search of aliens, ESA set to launch JUICE mission to Jupiter. Know about it

The European Space Agency (ESA) will launch the awaited Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission on April 13 from a spaceport in French Guiana. After an odyssey of eight years, the explorer will reach Jupiter in 2031 which will be set off on an Ariane 5 launcher.

Constructed by an industrial consortium led by Airbus Defence and Space on ESA's parameters, JUICE is aimed to conduct detailed exploration of the largest planet of the solar system and its icy moons.

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Similarly, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will also launch its Europa Clipper in October this year which will study Jupiter's Europa moon. It will, however, reach the gas giant planet on 2030. So far, only two other spacecraft have examined Jupiter – Galileo probe between 1995 and 2003; Juno is circling the planet since 2016.

What is the JUICE mission?

ESA's website says JUICE will use geophysical, remote sensing and in situ instruments to make detailed observation of the giant gas planet and its three ocean-bearing moons – Callisto, Europa and Ganymede. Scientists believe these moons have oceans under their icy crusts and JUICE will explore these water bodies. It will be for the first time scientists will look beneath ice crusts.

Among three moons, the explorer will primarily focus on Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system which also generates its own magnetic field.

The explorer will also try to figure out the origin, history and evolution of Jupiter which will allow scientist to have “much-needed insight into how such a planetary system and its constituents are formed and evolved over time, as well as revealing how possibly habitable environments can arise in Jupiter-like systems around other stars.”

Will it detect life on Jupiter?

Water held in Ganymede, Callisto and Europa could be around six times the volume of water in Earth's surface, which indicated a possibility of life. As per ESA, life on these moons could be in microbes-form. “More advanced species might also be present, like the ones we detect in deep-sea trenches and at hydrothermal vents on Earth, such as various kinds of coral, worm, mussel, shrimp and fish,” it said.

However, the JUICE explorer is not capable of detecting life on the planet, its moons. Nevertheless, it can find out places around the terrestrial bodies with necessary conditions for sustaining life.