By Isabelle Wilson-
A historic mission to search for signs of alien life on Jupiter’s icy moons has launched from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.
The Juice spacecraft has been carried skyward by an Ariane 5 rocket, beginning an eight-year journey to the gas giant’s orbit via flybys of Earth and Venus.
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Its successful launch today followed a delay to the mission follows the decision to postpone because of bad weather.
The $1,4bn probe is heading beyond local destinations such as the planet Mars into deep space to survey the icy moons of distant Jupiter. will exploit an unexpected feature of our solar system. The greatest reserves of water turn out to exist on worlds very far from Earth, in deep space, and in orbit around the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn.
It is the first mission to be launched specifically to explore these remote worlds.
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Other US probes discovered that three of Jupiter’s main moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa – were worlds of ice that covered vast oceans of liquid water, necessary for the existence of life on Earth.
Juice’s quest will include detailed observations of the above main moon which all have their own oceans that scientists believe could support life. They have the greatest known reserves of water outside Earth.
Engineers developed new types of solar cells to help power Juice in a part of space that enjoys just 3% of the illumination Earth gets from the sun.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer preparing to launch its eight year journey
Photograph: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/PA
European Space Agency (Esa) spaceport in Kourou in French Guiana will take about eight years to reach Jupiter, much longer than the quicker time of eight months earlier missions have taken to reach Mars. The journey will require a series of flybys of Earth and Venus to keep it up to speed.
After its visits to Callisto and Europa, Juice will enter into a permanent orbit around Ganymede in 2034. It will be the first time a spacecraft has ever held an orbit around a moon other than our own.
The satellite will carry out 35 flybys of the gas giant’s three moons before entering a permanent orbit around Ganymede in late 2034. Its mission will use an advanced suite of instruments to explore Jupiter and investigate whether any of the satellites that surround it are habitable.
Both missions are being run by separate space agencies, although Nasa and Esa insist there will be close collaboration and have set up a committee to coordinate joint missions that the two spacecraft might attempt.
Discovery that life has evolved twice in our own solar system could suggest it pervasiveness throughout the galaxy.
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