The JUpiter ICy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission will orbit the Jupiter system, focusing primarily on the study of three of its four icy moons larger, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto.
Of the entire solar system, Earth is the only known celestial body where life arose. However, ESA specialists wonder if the origin of life is exclusive to our planet or if the conditions might also have been given for it to develop in other parts of the cosmos, specifically, around the gas giants.
the researchers suspect that these three Jovian satellites they might be hiding oceans of liquid water beneath their icy layers, so there’s a chance they might harbor life. “We have reason to believe that they have an internal subterranean ocean beneath the icy crust,” explained ESA planetary scientist Olivier Witasse. The Juice mission was designed to search for the information required to determine whether such oceans exist.
With launch �� only a few months away, @ESA_JUICE is undergoing its last round of tests!
The ��️ was placed in a thermal vacuum chamber so that, by controlling both pressure & temperature, we might check its performance in space-like conditions. A first taste of what’s to come! pic.twitter.com/jr2XNPVlU8— Airbus Space (@AirbusSpace)
December 15, 2022
How and when will this mission be carried out?
ESA plans to launch the Jupiter-bound Juice mission in April, via the Ariane 5 rocket, which will take off from the Kouru spaceport (French Guiana). Once the scheduled orbit is reached, Ariane 5 will deploy the Juice probeso that it begins a journey of approximately eight years even on the gaseous planet.
The Juice space probe, which was built by the Airbus company, is equipped with a set of ten instruments of remote sensing, geophysical and charging “in situ” of the latest generation. NASA and the Japan Space Exploration Agency (JAXA) contributed to the manufacture of some of these instruments.
According to the European organization, for space exploration, the ship It will begin its scientific work six months before entering Jupiter’s orbit. Juice will then spend several months orbiting the gas planet to conduct flybys of its three oceanic moons.
Finally, the space probe will make an orbital tour of Ganymede, the largest moon in our solar system, even larger than Mercury, due to its role within the system of Jupiter’s large icy moons and its unique interactions with the Jovian environment. . The satellite device will have a useful life of 4 years.
The ESA indicated that, in addition to investigating the environment of Jupiter to find oceans below the icy surface of its moons, its system will also be studied “as an archetype of the gas giants of the entire Universe,” according to a publication. RT.
