The European Space Agency is about to send a spacecraft to explore Jupiter and three of its largest and most intriguing moons.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, or Juice, was expected to lift off Thursday at 8:15 a.m. ET aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. But a lightning risk postponed the launch, which has been rescheduled for Friday at 8:14 a.m. ET.
Weather can often cause launch delays and postponements. Specific weather criteria must be met in order for rockets to safely lift off. The James Webb Space Telescope, which launched aboard an Ariane 5 from the same location in December 2021, also faced similar delays due to adverse weather conditions around Kourou.
Once launched, the spacecraft will separate from the Ariane 5 launcher after 28 minutes. Over the course of the next 17 days, Juice will deploy its solar arrays, antennas and other instruments, followed by three months of testing and preparing the instruments.
Juice will take eight years to reach Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. During its lengthy cruise, the spacecraft will utilize some gravitational slingshots as it flies by Earth, our moon and Venus to help with the journey.
Once Juice arrives at Jupiter in July 2031, the spacecraft will spend about three and a half years orbiting the gas giant and conducting flybys of three of its moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. Toward the end of the mission, Juice will focus solely on orbiting Ganymede, making it the first spacecraft to ever orbit a moon in the outer solar system.
Ganymede, Callisto and Europa are ice-covered worlds that may contain subsurface oceans that are potentially habitable for life.
Meanwhile, NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, launching in 2024, is expected to reach Jupiter in April 2030 and conduct nearly 50 flybys of Europa, eventually reaching just 16 miles (25 kilometres) above the moon’s surface.
Together, the two missions could unlock some of the biggest mysteries about Jupiter and its moons.
UP CLOSE WITH THE KING OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Exploration of Jupiter began with NASA’s Pioneer and Voyager missions in the 1970s, followed by dedicated Jupiter missions like Galileo and the Juno probe. Juno has been orbiting Jupiter and flying by some of its moons since 2016.
The Juice mission has five main objectives, including using its powerful suite of 10 instruments to characterize the three icy moons and determine whether they harbor oceans, uncover what makes Ganymede so unique and determine if the moons are potentially habitable for life.
Planetary scientists want to know how deep the oceans are, if they contain salty or fresh water and how that water interacts with the ice shell of each moon. Ganymede, Callisto and Europa also have different surfaces. Juice could reveal what kind of activity has caused some of them to look dark and cratered or paler and grooved.
Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system, larger than Pluto and Mercury, and it’s the only one that has a magnetic field similar to Earth. Juice’s instruments can reveal the moon’s rotation, gravity, shape, interior structure and composition and peer through its icy crust using radar.
Juice will also conduct a detailed analysis of Jupiter to determine how the complex magnetic and radiation environment around this massive planet shaped its moons, as well as how Jupiter formed in the first place. Understanding more of Jupiter’s origin story can help scientists apply those findings to Jupiter-like planets found outside of our solar system.
Jupiter’s magnetic field is 20 times stronger than Earth’s and it has a harsh radiation environment, both of which impact its moons. The Juice mission was designed to unravel what takes place as Jupiter interacts with its moons, including auroras, hot spots, radio emissions and waves of charged particles.
THE POTENTIAL FOR LIFE
Although the three moons are encased in thick ice shells, interior heating could be taking place at each moon’s core — and that warmth could make the interior oceans possible habitats for past or existing life.
Juice can search the moons for evidence of the building blocks of life, including elements like carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, iron and magnesium.
Previous missions like Galileo and Cassini, which visited Saturn and its moons, confirmed that liquid water can be found on planets and moons far away from the sun — and that water is likely to exist under the surface.
“I think Juice is a confirmation that our understanding of where to search for potential habitability has changed in the last 20 years,” said Michele Dougherty, Royal Society research professor at Imperial College London and principal investigator of Juice’s magnetometer.
Life as we understand it on Earth requires liquid water, a heat source and organic material — “and then you need those first three ingredients to be stable enough over a long enough period of time that something can actually happen,” Dougherty said.
“With Juice, we want to confirm there’s liquid water in these moons, confirm their heat sources. Other instruments will be able to remotely sense whether there’s organic material on the surface as well. And so it’s putting all of those ingredients together,” she said.
SURVIVING JUPITER
Juice’s truck-size spacecraft has been designed to survive a long journey to Jupiter — and it has to survive the extremes of the gas giant’s environment once it arrives. Two cross-shaped solar arrays will provide the spacecraft with power and lead-lined vaults protect its most sensitive electronics.
The ESA-led mission includes contributions from NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. Testing and modeling of Jupiter’s radiation belts allowed engineers to prepare for what Juice will encounter.
“A key achievement of this model for us was to show that what at first seemed to be a dangerous place was not completely out of reach,” said Christian Erd, Juice spacecraft and system manager, in a statement. “Around three and a half years at Jupiter will involve the equivalent radiation exposure of a telecommunications satellite in geostationary Earth orbit for 20 years — which we have plenty of experience in managing.”
In order to help Juice survive, its trajectory was designed to fly past Callisto 21 times but only swing by Europa twice. Europa is the closest to Jupiter and sits well within its radiation halo. Just two orbits of the moon will cause the spacecraft to experience a third of its overall radiation exposure.
Some of Juice’s instruments are shielded, while others will be exposed to the elements to probe the atmospheres of Jupiter and its moons. Multiple imagers and sensors will capture and send back data across different wavelengths of light.
Given the eventual distance between the spacecraft and Earth, it will take 45 minutes to send a one-way signal to Juice. But that’s nothing compared to the years-long wait for Juice to arrive at Jupiter.
Scientists are already anticipating the unique data Juice will return.
“I think the most critical time is the first flyby we have of Ganymede,” Dougherty said. “The first one or two flybys is when we are going to confirm the existence of an ocean.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
