'We don't expect traces of life on the surface of these moons and it's not feasible yet to go down to where there might be life.'
mission, which will launch next year but will reach the Jupiter system one year ahead of JUICE, has a better chance of producing ground-breaking insights in that respect, as its focus is the smaller Europa. This moon, closer to Jupiter than Ganymede, is much more likely to possess all three of the main prerequisites for the emergence and existence of life, scientists think.
"What we think happens inside Ganymede if you go deep enough is that the water becomes ice again," said Masters."So Ganymede's ocean does not only have an ice shell above but also below and that means that the water is likely not in touch with the rocky core." "There would need to be a real shake-up of knowledge about Ganymede to put it into a different category," said Masters."If we for instance find that there isn't such a thick ice shell or if we find that there is material on the surface coming from below and that Ganymede is more like Enceladus and Europa, that might change things."So what is JUICE likely to find?
Remote analysis of the composition of the ice crust surface might provide some hints, as might remote measurements of the magnetic field around the moon and its variations. The magnetic field of Jupiter is more than 10,000 times stronger than that of Earth. In the 1990s,detected odd disturbances in this magnetic field that scientists eventually traced to the effects of oceans inside Jupiter's moons.
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