2022 was a big step in terms of space exploration, and this year doesn’t fall short. One of the most important quotes is el Launch of the European mission Juice, That will study Jupiter and its three large icy moons, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, that they might hide oceans under its surface, in addition to analyzing whether they might be habitable.

Juice is equipped with ten instruments and is led by the European Space Agency (ESA). The mission will help scientists better understand how the gas giants and their moons formed and their ability (or not) to support life. The launch window is scheduled for April 5-25, and if the launch is successful, the probe would reach Jupiter in July 2031.

It will be launched from Kourou, in French Guiana, on the Ariane 5 rocket. Juice will be equipped with 10 solar panels.

Its main objective is the search of potential habitable worlds around gas giant planets. Only one body is known to have experienced the appearance of life, which is the Earth. Is the origin of life exclusive to our planet or might it occur in other parts of the Solar System or beyond? the ESA asks on its website.

Juice, whose prime contractor is Airbus, will explore habitable zones — zones where an Earth-like planet does exist. might hold liquid water—, characterizing the oceans, ice sheets, composition, surface, environment, and activity of Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto.

In addition, you will analyze the Jupiter system in a broad sense, determining the characteristics of its turbulent atmosphere, the magnetic environment, the ring system, and other satellites of the planet, including lo.

The mission is led by ESA and has the collaboration of NASA, which has provided one of the instruments (UVS) and the “hardware” for others; The Japanese space agency JAXA also participates, also with the “hardware” of various instruments.

To meet its scientific objectives during the nearly four years of research, the mission is loaded with a suite of local, geophysical and remote sensing instruments.

juice will fly over a dozen times the moon Callisto, which is the object with the largest number of craters in the Solar System, details Alter Technology, which participates in the mission. I also knowwill fly over Europe twice in order to make the first measurements of the thickness of its icy crust. And finally, he will end up entering the orbit of Ganymede, where he will study the icy surface of the moon and its internal structure, including the ocean below.

The mission will investigate, on the one hand, the appearance of habitable worlds around gas giants and, on the other, the Jupiter system as an archetype of the numerous giant exoplanets that orbit other stars, summarizes the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA) on its website. -CSIC), in Spain, which is also in the mission.