The European Space Agency is planning to send a space probe to join NASA’s Juno orbiter, to study Jupiter and try to understand some of its mysteries, RT reports.
“Juice will conduct detailed observations of the gas giant and its three large moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, with a range of remote, geophysical and in situ sensing instruments,” the European Space Agency said in a mission overview.
Last Monday, the agency also revealed five specific mysteries it wants to tackle once Juice reaches its destination toward the giant planet, hopefully in 2031.
The first major puzzle that ESA focuses on is the obvious question that can be guessed from the Juice spacecraft’s full name: What’s going on with Ganymede, Callisto and Europa?
In short, these three moons, out of the 79 owned by Jupiter, are at the forefront of the agency’s endeavors because all of them are suspected of having some form of water on or under their surfaces.
Astrobiologists speculate that Europa, in particular, contains a massive amount of the chemical formula H2O (water), which could mean the possibility of alien life, which leads us to further inquiries from Juice.
The second question, through which one of the gas giant’s mysteries can be solved: Was there life on any of Jupiter’s moons, or on Jupiter itself?
In fact, it is unlikely, the possibility of life on Jupiter, because it does not have land or water, but there is only gas and water vapor in the atmosphere.
Basically, if you try to stand on Jupiter, you will fall until you are crushed by the planet’s massive gravity focused towards the center. And that’s if you can get that far in the first place.
But back in Europa, a largely icy world with solid ground, scientists are now putting this region at the top of their lists of places where we might find evidence of extraterrestrial life.
Indeed, NASA is building a dedicated spacecraft to survey Europe in search of such remnants.
And then, moving on to Ganymede, there are other wonders that the European Space Agency will try to explore: Why is Ganymede the only moon in our solar system that has its own magnetic field? This is very strange to science.
Ganymede’s magnetic field is so strong, in fact, that it causes auroras in its atmosphere, similar to the way Earth’s magnetic field produces the northern lights when electrons get stuck inside.
“Jupiter’s tour of Jupiter will include multiple flights of these ocean-bearing moons, before culminating in orbit around Ganymede, the first time a spacecraft has orbited a moon in the outer solar system,” the European Space Agency said.
Moreover, the European Space Agency also wants to know if, and how, the complex space environment of Jupiter shaped the path or conditions of its moons.
With 79 individual moons orbiting around it, this Jupiter universe has its own “solar system”, assuming Jupiter represents the sun.
Finally, the fifth and final mystery that the ESA hopes to understand is how this massive gas ball came into being in the first place, in the sense of how a typical gas giant planet formed, and how it functions.
And if all goes well, by 2030 we may have some answers that could explain the dark secrets of Jupiter and its moons.