Yoselina Guevara López
Venezuelan astrophysicist, Miriam Rengel
This April 14, the JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) mission was launched at the spaceport of Kourou (French Guiana), which will make detailed observations of the planet Jupiter, focusing on the study of its largest moons: Callisto, Europa and Ganymede, in addition to its hidden oceans underground.
Venezuelan astrophysicist on the JUICE mission
Venezuelan astrophysicist, Miriam Rengel, is part of the JUICE mission that will investigate the habitability characteristics of Jupiter, through different analyses that will be carried out by means of the submillimeter wave instrument. Dr. Rengel has undergraduate studies at the prestigious Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, and graduate studies at the Universidad de Los Andes, Mérida, both based in her native country. She later obtained a PhD in astrophysics at the Friedrich Schiller University in Germany. This researcher has also collaborated with the Hershel, Rosetta and Sentinel-6 space missions, which served to learn the details of the solar system. Being part of the JUICE mission is an important achievement for Dr. Rengel, who represents her country in the race to conquer space, as well as demonstrating the high level of Venezuelan education.
A journey that will last for years
The JUICE space probe heading towards Jupiter separated from the Ariana 5 carrier rocket at an altitude of 1500 kilometers; but it will only reach its destination in 2031. Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, is an average of 628 million kilometers from planet Earth. Since the space probe does not have the power to fly that far directly, it will have to travel around the planet Venus, where it will arrive in 2025, before passing in front of the Earth again in 2029, in order to obtain the gravitational pull needed to reach its final destination in July 2031. To get an idea of the size of the distant planet, the scientists make a simple comparison: the Earth is the size of a coin, while Jupiter is the size of a basketball.
What will the JUICE mission team study?
The goal of the JUICE mission is to definitively prove the existence of life beyond Earth; a marked difference from other similar Mars missions focused on searching for signs of ancient life long extinct. It is also the first exploration of a habitat outside the solar system’s frost line. JUICE will only study three moons but between 80 and 95 moons are known to orbit Jupiter. For example, in 1610 Galileo Galilei first observed four of them: Ganymede (the largest moon in the solar system and the only one with a magnetic field), Callisto and Europa. The JUICE Mission will study these three icy bodies and their vast sub-surface salty oceans, which could harbor life forms.
Space Geopolitics
But taking these investigations to the field of geopolitics that dominates the world, we realize that indeed the growing competition between the great powers goes beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. In fact, cosmic space is already defined by NATO as a “domain”. That is to say, the same geopolitical confrontation that is being experienced on our planet is gradually developing in space, in the constant search for new spaces of preeminence.
On the other hand, at the military level, space infrastructures, whether civil or military, are now an integral part of the strategic thinking of States, the protection of which is now a reflex shared by all the world’s armed forces. For example, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has shown us how satellites are potentially targets for attacks in space. Numerous countries have created military corps dedicated to space with different declinations. From the different orbits it is possible to precisely monitor the enemy and direct troops into ever wider areas, while constantly maintaining command and control capabilities. If to this use of stellar space for defense purposes we add the struggle for the exploitation of resources necessary for the survival of the human species, and the possibility of other spaces where habitats can be accurately developed, the panorama becomes more complex and belligerent.
One important detail is that not all countries have access to orbits, and the levels of space operations vary greatly from one State to another. Even the position of a country on the Earth’s surface, more or less close to the equator, is decisive in reaching the orbits. Hence, some powers will necessarily have to make alliances, which indeed they have already begun to do, to be able to maintain their positions not only on Earth but also beyond the terrestrial sphere. What seemed like science fiction stories or movies is becoming the reality of an increasingly near future.
Yoselina Guevara López: Venezuelan social communicator, political analyst, columnist in different international media, whose work has been translated into English, Italian, Greek and Swedish. Winner of the Simón Bolívar 2022 National Journalism Award (Venezuela), special mention Opinion; Aníbal Nazoa 2021 National Journalism Award (Venezuela); I Comandante Feliciano 2022 Historical Memory Contest (El Salvador) Third place. Twitter: @lopez_yoselina #MundoTuit
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