ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) is on a grand mission to the Jovian system, but before embarking on its eight-year journey to explore Jupiter and its icy moons, it took a detour to check in on its home planet. On August 20th, JUICE conducted a flyby of Earth, returning some very exciting news: the Earth is indeed habitable. This might seem like a redundant finding, but it was a crucial test run for the spacecraft’s instruments.
JUICE’s primary mission is to investigate Jupiter’s moons, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, which are believed to harbor liquid-water oceans beneath their icy surfaces. These oceans could potentially support life, making the moons prime targets in the search for extraterrestrial life. To ensure the instruments are calibrated for this challenging task, JUICE decided to run a trial run on Earth, the only solar system body known to harbor life.
During its Earth flyby, JUICE used two of its instruments: the Moons and Jupiter Imaging Spectrometer (MAJIS) and the Submillimeter Wave Instrument (SWI), which were able to detect the presence of water, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, and sulfur in Earth’s atmosphere. These elements, known as CHNOPS, are the most common elements found in living organisms, confirming the Earth’s habitability. While this might seem obvious, the successful detection serves as a reassurance that JUICE’s instruments are capable of identifying the signs of life on other celestial bodies.
JUICE’s Earth flyby wasn’t just about confirming our planet’s habitability. The spacecraft also collected valuable data about the composition of Earth’s atmosphere, including oxygen, ozone, and carbon dioxide. Scientists are particularly interested in oxygen levels, which they will compare to the oxygen levels found in the Jovian system to understand if the potential life-supporting environments in Jupiter’s moons could match the conditions found on Earth.
This Earth flyby serves as a crucial stepping stone in JUICE’s journey. It provides invaluable information for interpreting the data collected from Jupiter’s icy moons, ultimately helping us determine if these celestial bodies could potentially harbor life. With its instruments calibrated and its mission well underway, JUICE is now on its way to Jupiter, carrying the hopes and aspirations of scientists and the public in search of life beyond Earth.
