Scientists think that Jupiter’s moons may have huge oceans under their icy surfaces. ESA’s JUICE mission is to try and understand if they could have any life in their oceans, and if there could be any habitable worlds around gas giants like Jupiter. ESA has been busy choosing the 11 scientific experiments that will study the giant planet and its moons.
La misión JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) se lanzará previsiblemente en 2022 y tardará 8 años en llegar a Júpiter, el mayor planeta del Sistema Solar. Después, pasará al menos tres años observando el planeta y tres de sus mayores lunas heladas, Ganímedes, Calisto y Europa.
Los instrumentos que se enviarán a Júpiter incluyen cámaras y espectrómetros (para medir la luz), un altímetro láser (para medir la altitud) y un radar de penetración de hielo. La misión también llevará un magnetómetro (para medir campos magnéticos). El desarrollo de estos instrumentos será responsabilidad de los equipos de científicos de 15 países europeos, junto con otros de EE.UU. y Japón.
The spacecraft will fly by Callisto, the most heavily cratered object in the Solar System, more than twelve times. It will also fly past Europa twice so that it can measure the thickness of its icy crust. JUICE will end up in orbit around the moon called Ganymede, where it will study its icy surface and internal structure, including its ocean under the surface. Ganymede is the biggest moon in the Solar System and the only one known to create its own magnetic field.
“Jupiter and its icy moons make up a kind of mini-Solar System in their own right, offering European scientists and our international partners the chance to learn more about the formation of potentially habitable worlds around other stars,” says Dmitrij Titov, ESA’s JUICE Study Scientist.
