This Week ESA Will Launch Mission To Find Proof Of Life On Jupiter

The European Space Agency (ESA) will launch the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft. (photo..dok. ESA/ATG MediaLab)

JAKARTA - Within days, the European Space Agency (ESA) will launch the Jupiter's Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft, which will orbit the planet's Moon.

Jupiter itself is known as a planet that has many moons, claimed to be more than 90 Months. However, JUICE will only explore the three Months, namely Ganymede, Callisto and Europa.

Thanks to NASA's Galileo spacecraft that directed its telescope to Jupiter in 1955, he discovered four celestial bodies surrounding the planet and has evidence of a liquid ocean hidden beneath its ice surface.

The four objects are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, now known as Jupiter's Galilean Moon.

While the discovery of liquid water, which is the main ingredient of life on Earth, has so far been in space making scientists wonder if life is hidden on the Moon?

In fact, they also suspect that there may be an environment on the ocean floor that maintains life such as thermal ventilation at the bottom of Earth's oceans.

"The hardest thing we want to do is try and measure the magnetic field of the electric current flowing in the oceans of liquid water in Ganymede," said Major Investigator for the magnetometer aboard the JUICE, Professor Michele Dougherty.

"That will allow us to know not only the depth of the ocean, but the salt content and hopefully get ideas about whether it's a global ocean or whether it's just focused on the moon part," he added.

That's what JUICE has to research further. Where the spacecraft will launch from the European spaceport, Kourou, French Guiana, aboard the Ariane 5 rocket into space on April 13.

Then JUICE will take about eight years to reach Jupiter, with an estimated arrival in 2031, as quoted from Metro, Monday, April 10.

During that trip, JUICE will use the help of gravity around Earth to flybys and Venus that carry it to Jupiter, as these spacecraft do not carry much fuel.

"We are almost sure that at least three months of having a good liquid water ocean beneath its surface. If we look for a place in our solar system, where life can form, the first ingredient you look for is liquid water," said Professor Dougherty.