Europe's JUICE probe will study three of Jupiter's icy moons, looking for signs of habitable sub-surface oceans.
An Ariane 5 rocket is poised for launch Thursday to send a $1.7 billion European Space Agency probe on a roundabout 8-year voyage to Jupiter where it will study the giant planet in exhaustive detail while focusing on three of its ice-covered moons where sub-surface, possibly habitable oceans are hidden from view.
"And to understand this question of habitability, we need to explore the Jupiter system globally. So study Jupiter, its atmosphere, its weather, its strong, rotating magnetic field, the volcanic moon Io, the other moons in the system and how all these bodies are connected to each other." As its name suggests, NASA's probe will focus on Europa, flying past that icy moon nearly 50 times at altitudes as low as 16 miles. JUICE will focus primarily on Callisto and Ganymede, making 21 flybys of the former and 12 of the latter.
The JUICE spacecraft, its solar arrays folded up at top and bottom, is readied for launch to Jupiter.JUICE and Clipper will open new windows on those icy worlds, possibly confirming the habitability of the hidden seas. Whether life could exist in such extreme environments is an open question. But, Witasse cautions,"we are not going to detect life with JUICE. Nevertheless, we are going to study interesting aspects related to life and habitability."
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