Juice: The European Space Agency’s mission to find alien life on Jupiter’s moons

Published

2 years ago

April 13, 2023

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A space mission with a name like no other is about to embark on a journey to find alien life on the moons of Jupiter.

Juice (that’s short for Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) is a European Space Agency (ESA) venture to make unprecedentedly detailed observations of the gas giant.

It will include searching its icy moons – Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, which each have their own oceans – to find out whether they could have supported life, and maybe if they still do.

As the final countdown to launch approaches, here’s everything you need to know about humanity’s latest quest to explore the stars.

When and where is the launch?

Juice is planned to launch at 1.15pm UK time on Thursday.

It will be fired skyward aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the ESA’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

So yes, it’s not actually launching from Europe, but rather a French territory on the north coast of South America.

A livestream of the launch will begin around half an hour before the blast-off time, so you can get swept up in the excitement before the real action begins.

If the timings go to plan, Juice will separate from the upper stage of Ariane 5 at 1.42pm UK time, and should send its first signal down to the Earth’s surface by 1.51pm, allowing mission crews to take control of the craft.

How long will the mission go on for?

Quite some time, you certainly won’t be tuning in for a livestream of the entire mission.

Juice’s total cruise time will be eight years and include flybys of Earth and Venus on its way to Jupiter, where it will make close encounters with its three moons.

They will be observed using remote sensing and geophysical tools, as well as equipment on the craft.

Jupiter itself will also be closely examined, with astronomers hoping that knowledge gained about its complex magnetic, radiation, and plasma environment will help inform studies of other gas giants.

One of which is Saturn, another gas giant with moons boasting oceans that could support life. Such worlds have the greatest known reserves of water outside Earth, and Juice is the first mission to explore them.

The ESA will be assisted in its work by NASA, and the space agencies of Japan and Israel.

What do we know about the spacecraft and rocket?

Every space launch is something of an engineering miracle, but Ariane 5 is relatively standard so far as rockets go.

Described by the ESA as “the workhorse” of its access to space, it’s not to the level of NASA’s record-breaking, multibillion-dollar Space Launch System powering the Artemis programme.

That said, Ariane 5 did carry NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope into orbit in December 2021.

The ESA has launched more than 100 Ariane 5 rockets, and it will finally be retired next year. You can probably guess what its successor is called.

Juice is pretty much top of the line so far as probes go – and it cost £1.4bn.

Much of that went towards making sure solar power can work in a section of space that enjoys just 3% of the illumination Earth gets from the sun. Earth is about 93 million miles from the sun, Jupiter isn’t far off 500 million.

It is, as Juice spacecraft manager Christian Erd described it…

‘A faraway, dark place’

The Juice mission’s intrepid team of engineers were tasked with developing capable solar cells that could operate in super dark conditions.

The result were ones with a “triple junction” design – that means three layers of cells are placed on top of each other, generating power from different wavelengths of sunlight.

It makes them more efficient than those made for previous missions, but the task at hand was still a tough one.

Solar cell engineer Carsten Baur said the solar power received around Jupiter was “like going indoors” compared to what you would get near Earth.

Speaking of going indoors, Juice needs to be covered in so many solar cells (24,000) that there are enough to fill an average-sized living room.

In a vote of confidence, NASA is using them for its own Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter in 2024.

It’s due to arrive at Jupiter by 2030, beating Juice by a year thanks to taking a shorter route.

Juice will end its mission by going into orbit around Ganymede, marking the first time a spacecraft has ever been stationed at a moon other than Earth’s. It’s expected to happen in 2034.

Indeed, this spacecraft will be making history for a long time to come.

World

Mile after mile of grey rubble – the view from a plane dropping aid to Gaza

Published

11 hours ago

July 29, 2025

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Mile after mile of grey rubble - the view from a plane dropping aid to Gaza

We are on our way to Gaza with the Jordanian military.

The aircraft is hot and noisy and as we get closer, the atmosphere gets more tense. Aircrew gesture with their hands to tell us how many minutes there are to go. Fifteen. Six. One.

The Jordanian military C-130 flies out over the sea before banking and heading inland for Gaza. The parachutes, attached to the top of each of the eight pallets, are prepared for the drop.

As land approaches, I look down. The ground is modern and built up – we’re still over southern Israel.

Then a few short minutes later, it’s clear we’ve crossed Gaza’s border.

The ground turns grey, the shapes of buildings disappear, there are no cars, no people.

You can see the outline of communities and villages that are now flattened. Mile after mile of grey rubble.

This mission by the Royal Jordanian Air Force is one of the first aid drop flights since Israel announced they could resume. It is carrying eight tonnes of food and baby formula.

Foreign nations know this is a deeply flawed way of delivering aid – road convoys are far more effective and can carry far more – but the Jordanian flight crew say the need in Gaza is so urgent, it’s simply an attempt to do something.

When the aircraft ramp opens, the aid is pushed out and it’s gone in seconds.

The parachutes seem peaceful as they open and their fall slows. But dropping food from the sky is a dangerous and undignified way to feed people.

On the ground it’s chaos.

Our colleagues in Gaza say the fighting for food has become lethal – gangs are now punching and stabbing people to reach it first. Most critically, it’s not getting to the weakest. To those who really need it.

One man becomes emotional as he describes racing to find food and leaving with nothing.

“I came only for my son,” he says. “I wouldn’t come here if it was just for me. When you have a child, they need bread.”

He’s an engineer in normal times and seems in disbelief that his life has come to this. “The aid comes from the sky and we have to run after it. I’ve never had to do this in my life.”

It is hoped Israel’s humanitarian pauses in fighting will rapidly increase food distribution by road but it’s very unclear how that is going.

Hospitals in Gaza have reported another 14 deaths from starvation in the last 24 hours, the Gaza health ministry said on Monday.

Airstrikes killed another at least 78 Palestinians across Gaza on Monday, local health officials said.

We cannot verify these numbers because Israel has not allowed international journalists access to Gaza.

And Monday’s flight came with strict media conditions.

We were told the Israeli side had warned that any shots of Gaza filmed from the air could result in these aid flights being cancelled.

But Israel’s tight grip has not stopped the images from Gaza getting out, horrifying people around the world.

The question now is what more the international community will do about it.

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Israeli human rights organisations accuse country of genocide

Published

14 hours ago

July 28, 2025

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Israeli human rights organisations accuse country of genocide

Two Israeli human rights organisations have said the country is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

In reports published on Monday, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said Israel was carrying out “coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip”.

The two groups are the first major voices within Israeli society to make such accusations against the state during nearly 22 months of war against Hamas.

Israel has vehemently denied claims of genocide. David Mencer, a spokesperson for the government, called the allegation by the rights groups “baseless”.

He said: “There is no intent, (which is) key for the charge of genocide… it simply doesn’t make sense for a country to send in 1.9 million tonnes of aid, most of that being food, if there is an intent of genocide.”

B’Tselem director Yuli Novak called for urgent action, saying: “What we see is a clear, intentional attack on civilians in order to destroy a group.”

The organisation’s report “is one we never imagined we would have to write,” Ms Novak said. “The people of Gaza have been displaced, bombed, and starved, left completely stripped of their humanity and rights.”

PHR said Israel’s military campaign shows evidence of a “deliberate and systemic dismantling of Gaza’s health and life-sustaining systems”.

Both organisations said Israel’s Western allies were enabling the genocidal campaign, and shared responsibility for suffering in Gaza.

“It couldn’t happen without the support of the Western world,” Ms Novak said. “Any leader that is not doing whatever they can to stop it is part of this horror.”

Hamas said the reports by the two groups were a “clear and unambiguous testimony from within Israeli society itself regarding the grave crimes perpetrated by the occupation regime against our people”.

Dire humanitarian conditions

Since Israel launched its offensive in Gaza following the deadly Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, nearly 60,000 people – mostly civilians – have been killed, according to Gaza health officials.

Much of the infrastructure has been destroyed, and nearly the whole population of more than two million has been displaced.

An increasing number of people in Gaza are also dying from starvation and malnutrition, according to Gaza health authorities.

On Monday, the Gaza health ministry reported that at least 14 people had died from starvation and malnutrition in the past 24 hours, raising the total number of hunger-related deaths during the war to 147.

Among the victims were 88 children, with most of the deaths occurring in recent weeks.

UN agencies say the territory is running out of food for its people and accuse Israel of not allowing enough aid deliveries to the enclave. Israel denies those claims.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said “there is no starvation in Gaza” and vowed to fight on against Hamas.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that many in Gaza are facing starvation and implied that Israel could take further steps to improve humanitarian access.

Israel has repeatedly said its actions in Gaza are in self-defence, placing full responsibility for civilian casualties on Hamas. It cites the militant group’s refusal to release hostages, surrender, or stop operating within civilian areas – allegations that Hamas denies.

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Why are airdrops on Gaza so dangerous?

Published

23 hours ago

July 28, 2025

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The United Nations has condemned airdrops on Gaza, warning they risk killing the starving Palestinians they are intended to help.

Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel parachuted aid packages into the territory for the first time in months at the weekend amid claims a third of the population has not eaten for days.

But Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general for the UN Relief and Work Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), has said they “will not reverse the deepening starvation” and often do more harm than good.

‘Make or break’ as starvation looms; Middle East latest

“They are expensive, inefficient & can even kill starving civilians,” he wrote in a statement on X.

What is an airdrop – and why are they dangerous?

There are several ways humanitarian agencies and international allies can deliver aid to regions in need – by land, by sea, or by air.

While parachuting in supply packages from planes may look impressive, airdrops are “fraught with problems”, Sky correspondent in Jordan Sally Lockwood says, and often used as a “desperate last resort”.

“Foreign nations know airdrops are a deeply flawed way of delivering aid,” she says.

“Palestinian sources tell us the aid that’s been dropped so far is not reaching the most vulnerable. They are an attempt to get something to a few – often viewed as a desperate last resort. Gaza is at that point.”

Military analyst Sean Bell says that delivering aid by air is ideally done when planes can land on a runway – but Gaza’s only landing strip in Rafah was shut down in 2021.

The alternative is “very dangerous”, he warns. “Aircraft flying relatively low and slow over a warzone isn’t very clever. When these parcels hit the ground, there’s a significant danger of them hitting people.”

Crucially, they can only deliver a fraction of what lorries can.

“The really big issue is aircraft can only deliver one truckload of aid. Gaza needs 500 truckloads a day, so it’s 0.2% of the daily need,” Bell adds.

They also risk falling into the wrong hands and ending up on the black market.

“Some of it has been looted by gangs and is on the black market already,” Lockwood says.

Why are they happening now?

Israel cut off all supplies to Gaza at the beginning of March, reopening some aid centres in May, but with restrictions they said were designed to stop goods being stolen by Hamas militants.

Israeli authorities control the only three border crossings to the strip: Kerem Shalom in the south, Crossing 147 in the centre, and Erez to the north.

Since the current conflict with Hamas began in October 2023, humanitarian agencies and world leaders have repeatedly accused Israel of not allowing enough deliveries through.

Mr Lazzarini says the UN has “the equivalent of 6,000 trucks” in neighbouring Jordan and Egypt “waiting for the green light to get into Gaza”.

Israel says it has commissioned a “one-week scale-up of aid”, having conducted its own airdrops on Saturday.

In a statement over the weekend, the Israeli Defence Forces said it will work with the UN and other aid organisations to ensure aid is delivered but no more details were given.

Meanwhile on Sunday, it began daily 10-hour pauses in fighting in three areas of Gaza to address the deteriorating humanitarian situation.

According to the Hamas-run health ministry, 133 Palestinians had died of malnutrition by then, including 87 children.

Doctors Without Borders warned on Friday that 25% of young children and pregnant women in Gaza are malnourished.

Israel says there is no famine in Gaza.

What are in the airdrops and who is behind them?

Air packages are largely being delivered by C-130 planes. Jordan is reported to be using 10 and the UAE eight.

They can carry eight pallets of goods each, weighing around eight tonnes in total, according to Lockwood, who is on the runway at Jordan’s King Abdullah II airbase.

There are no medical supplies in the packages, she says, only dried food, rice, flour, and baby formula.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK will help with airdrops – but no British aircraft have been seen in Jordan so far.

He will discuss the matter with US President Donald Trump during talks in Scotland on Monday.

The RAF delivered 110 tonnes of aid across 10 drops last year as part of a Jordanian-led international coalition – but it is not clear what level of support will be offered this time.