NASA’s Juno spacecraft made its closest approach to Jupiter’s icy moon Europa more than 20 years ago, according to Metro.
Juno has slipped 222 miles from Europe, and it is believed that an ocean is flowing beneath its thick, frozen crust, raising the possibility of underwater life.
Once the data has been processed, the scientists hope to get lucky and notice the potential water plumes being released from Europa’s surface.
“We have to be in the right place at exactly the right time, but if we’re very lucky, that’s for sure,” Juno chief scientist Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement.
As exciting as the Juno data would be, the spacecraft only had a two-hour window to collect, racing across the moon at a relative speed of about 14.7 miles per second (23.6 kilometers per second).
“It’s very early in the process, but by all indications Juno’s flight over Europa was a huge success,” said Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is full of instruments and sensors that got the data as we skimmed over the moon’s icy crust.”
The latest observations will help NASA plan for the Europa Clipper mission, scheduled to launch in 2024, and the European Space Agency is also planning close encounters with Jupiter Icy Moons Exploreror Juicewhich will be launched next year.