Juice Mission : European Space Agency
The European Space Agency is set to launch the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) mission to explore Jupiter and its icy moons, namely Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa.
- Juice Mission launched from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 launcher.
- The mission is set to reach Jupiter in 2031.
- The spacecraft was constructed by Airbus Defence and Space, a division of the Airbus group.
- The main objective of the mission:
- To create detailed maps of the moons’ surfaces and look beneath them to probe the potential habitable environments by analyzing the water bodies underneath.
- To create a comprehensive picture of Jupiter by trying to understand its origin, history, and evolution.
- The focus will be on Ganymede (the largest moon in the Solar System, which generates its magnetic field).
- The three moons, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa, are believed to hold immense amounts of water, potentially making them habitable.
- Juice isn’t equipped to detect life but can find out whether there could be places around Jupiter, inside the icy moons, where the necessary conditions, such as water, biological essential elements, energy, and stability, to sustain life are present.
