Humanity has been making great strides in space exploration over the past months: A comet lander recently reactivated after months of hibernation and promises new insights about outer space; a successful Pluto flyby provided more images of the farthest dwarf planet in the solar system; and an exoplanet that bears close resemblance to the Earth has been spotted.
The space exploration, however, has just begun. This week, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced its plan to launch a search for extraterrestrial life on three moons of Jupiter.
The undertaking, dubbed the Juice (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) mission, will begin in 2022 and will explore Jupiter's Galileean moons: Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.
Dr. Daniel Brown, an astronomy expert from Nottingham Trent University, said the Juice mission is the first of its kind since it will attempt to find life on a celestial body not similar to Earth.
"All our current exciting and fascinating space missions have been dealing with either understanding the origins of life and our Solar System or finding exoplanets or Earth-like planets," Brown said.
"But life doesn't have to exist on planets like Earth. It could also have developed in oceans within icy moons around Jupiter," he added.
The mission does not necessarily seek to search for intelligent life on Jupiter's moons. It will be launched to explore the possibility of micro-organisms or even fish-like creatures existing in deep-water hydrothermal vents of the Galileean moons.
"Juice will be exploring the three Galilean moons of Jupiter thought to harbour oceans under their surface. It will give us a much better understanding what lies beneath the icy crust and how it could offer an environment for life to develop," Brown explained.
The Juice mission will be undertaken in partnership with Airbus. The company will provide an Ariane 5 rocket which will do the surveillance on Jupiter's moons for three and a half years.
