Preparations underway for ESA’s JUICE mission to Jupiter
12 August 2015
Jupiter is the largest planet in our Solar System; it’s more than 1000 times bigger than Earth! Yet surprisingly, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the giant planet. But that’s about to change. ESA’s next big science mission, JUICE, will take us on a journey across the Solar System to explore Jupiter and some of its large, icy moons.
Last month, ESA made a very important decision: it selected a company called Airbus Defence & Space to design and build JUICE, and make it ready for launch in 2022.
It will take eight years for JUICE to reach Jupiter! Once at destination, it will spend the next three and a half years sweeping around the giant planet, exploring its stormy atmosphere and mysterious dark rings.
But the spacecraft won't be focused on Jupiter alone. It will also study three of its planet-sized, icy moons: Callisto, Europa and Ganymede. Astronomers believe each of these distant worlds could be hiding vast water oceans beneath their icy surface. This is very intriguing, because water is important for life to exist!
The spacecraft will then fly past Europa and Callisto before completing its mission with an 8-month tour of Ganymede. Ganymede is the largest moon in our Solar System (larger than Mercury and Pluto!) and it’s the only moon known to possess a magnetic field.
JUICE’s hard work will not only help us get to know our largest neighbour better, it will also help us better understand how planets form in general. But one of the most exciting things JUICE will tell us is whether life is likely on distant, icy worlds!
Cool fact: What does JUICE stand for? JUICE is short for JUpiter ICy moons Explorer!
