By studying the rotation parameters of this moon, we can also precisely know, for example, the depth of the ocean. ROSE-MARIE BALAND, one of the team’s planetary scientists confirms: “All this information helps to understand the history of the ice moon. Are we observing something that has been going on for a long time, has this liquid ocean been there for a long time or not, it helps to know if we chances are it’s habitable.”
Fourth instrument, MAGIS, a complex imaging spectrometer, it should make it possible to know the properties of the ice and the minerals present on their icy surface and their relationship with the subsoil.
This instrument was developed by dozens of engineers and scientists in France, Italy and the United States. Its detector, measuring only 16 by 16 millimeters but very efficient, has been calibrated here, at the Institute for Space Aeronomy in Belgium. It absolutely had to be characterized before its integration into the instrument.
DAVID BOLSEE is the Head of the Radiometric Characterization Laboratory. He remembers all the precautions taken: “We had to put it in conditions that will be its own, we had to put it in an environment simulating space, under vacuum and at very low temperatures, thanks to a cryogenic cooling system and we studied all its performance. internal properties, its ‘electro-optical properties’ to be exact.”
And to carry on, “It was a multitasking job, with a whole series of parameters to be checked depending on the temperature, in the absence or presence of light. There were several measurement campaigns that were spread over four years, two of which were for calibrate the bench specifically for this detector.”
“Imaging the atmosphere and surface of this gas giant planet and three of its icy satellites will provide us with valuable information about their formation within our solar system and the conditions of emergence that allow life. But this is only possible if the detector and the spectrometer work perfectly.”
It’s not for now, the journey will last 8 years, before a series of complex maneuvers upon arrival in the hostile environment of Jupiter. Intense radiation could harm its electronic system and the force of attraction of the giant could make it deviate. It is the most distant mission in the solar system ever undertaken by ESA.