'This is one of the most exciting missions we have ever flown in the solar system, by far the most complex.'
There are dozens of moons orbiting Jupiter, the largest planet orbiting the Sun. Some of them are pretty huge and, according to scientists, may feature massive subsurface oceans that could potentially harbor life beneath a thick, protective layer of ice.
The JUICE mission will be doing flybys of three of Jupiter's most fascinating moons — Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede — while collecting data with a variety of scientific instruments.We'll have to be patient, however, until JUICE reaches its final destination. Its epic journey will take over eight long years, including several gravitational assist swings around Venus, Mars, and Earth.
The ESA is hoping to get within just a couple of hundred miles of the surface of these moons, giving them the most detailed look yet. "This is one of the most exciting missions we have ever flown in the solar system, by far the most complex," Josef Aschbacher, the head of ESA, told theBut if everything goes according to plan, it might have the best shot yet at discovering the first extraterrestrial signs of life.
"For habitability, you need liquid water, a heat source, and organic materials," Michele Dougherty, principal investigator of one of the spacecraft's instruments, told theMore on the mission:
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