Two years ago, children from all over the world were invited to create a piece of art inspired by ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice). Last week, a dream came true for nine-year-old Yaryna as her winning artwork was pasted onto the nose of the mighty Ariane 5 rocket that will carry Juice into space next month.

“The drawing was selected out of more than 2600 entries from 63 different countries,” says Monica Talevi, head of ESA’s Education programme. “This astonishing number shows how much the very young generation can be excited and inspired by space and science. These children are our future... if life is one day discovered on one of Jupiter’s icy moons, it will be them who discover it! This is why offering inspirational learning through this competition and many more initiatives is so important for us.”

The ‘Juice Up Your Rocket’ competition gave the scientists and engineers working on Juice the opportunity to discover how the mission is seen through the eyes of children. The winning artwork is now the logo of the mission.

Juice engineer Manuela Baroni explains why they chose this particular artwork: “It is so cute, cheerful and genuine. It contains the main elements of the mission – Jupiter, the icy moons, and Juice itself, but we love that it also contains Earth, highlighting the huge amount of effort that we are all putting in. We also chose it because of the clear lines and colours that would show up well at the top of the rocket. We can now see that it was definitely the right choice.”

The artwork will be clearly visible as Juice launches into space on 13 April from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. This launch kicks off an eight-year journey to the giant gas planet and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. The spacecraft will explore Jupiter’s stormy atmosphere and giant magnetic field, and discover the secrets hiding in the moons’ icy oceans.

“Many children dream of being explorers when they grow up, and what a fantastic explorer Juice will be,” concludes Manuela.

Discover more about the idea and results of the ‘Juice Up Your Rocket’ competition in episode 6 of ‘The Making of Juice’.