2023-04-13 18:55:33
A few minutes from the scheduled takeoff time, the European Space Agency (ESA) He decided cancel the start of the JUICE mission to Jupiterto prevent the Ariane 5 rocket could be struck by lightning in its ascent through the atmosphere, due to the bad weather conditions prevailing in the area of Kourou European Spaceport, French Guianafrom where the space probe with the aforementioned rocket on board was going to be launched.
As reported by the company Arianaespace through a press release, weather permitting, the try again to put into orbit the launch of the space probe that will seek to determine if, as the existing evidence so far indicates, the oceans of both Jupiter and its three large oceanic moons – (Callisto, Europa and Ganymede)-, are potentially habitablewill take place tomorrow, Friday the 14th, at 1:40 p.m. local time (08:30 a.m. Argentine time).
The takeoff time was specially chosen by those responsible for the mission with the aim that the probe 6 tons of weightso what was it built by the Airbus company in the French city of Toulouse maximize fuelcarrying out a complex interplanetary choreography in which it will gain speed using the force of gravity of the Earth, the Moon and Venus, in a total of four flybys and eight years of space travel since his arrival at Jupiter is scheduled for mid-2031.
“The presence of saltwater inside of layer of Jupiter’s moon Europa could be transporting oxygen to an ocean of liquid water which is covered in ice and could help sustain human life”, they explained from ESA, about this mission that will require an investment of no less than 1,600 million euros and involving some 2,000 people.
“A few years ago I would have said that it was unthinkable to find living beings in this environment, but now I know that we are close to achieving it.”, affirmed the Spanish astrophysicist Luis María Lara, to the newspaper El País of Spain.
Endowed with a dozens of state-of-the-art scientific instruments that were specially built to study the oceans in depth, JUICE also has a radar that will allow you to explore the outer layers of solid ice and detect the presence of small pockets of liquid water in the ice.
In addition, JUICE has several magnetometer that will allow scientists to study, in great depth, the secondary magnetic fields which are caused by interaction of driving oceanswith the field of Jupiter, while they will also be able to provide you with very important information about the salinity and volumes of the oceans.
“The discoveries that this probe can make in the Galilean moons can change the way of thinking about these worlds and the possibility of life on them.”, pointed out the French scientist Nicolás Altobelli, head of the mission’s scientific activities.
“One of the usual requirements is that there is oxygen, but that gas was not necessary for the appearance of life on the early Earth. Another thing is that you need oxygen for complex life to appear as there is on Earth today”, concluded the specialist.
Finally, as explained by ESA, beyond the results that JUICE may obtain, once its mission is accomplished and completed, in 2035 it will head towards the surface of Ganymede, where it will crash and self-destruct.
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