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How the JUICE mission will look for habitability on Jupiter's moons

ESA’s JUICE mission will help us better understand whether Jupiter’s icy moons are habitable. But we need to be open to their unexpected secrets, says principal investigator Michele Dougherty

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Juice launch 14/04/2023 ESA?s latest interplanetary mission, Juice, lifted off on an?Ariane 5 rocket?from?Europe?s Spaceport?in French 09:14 local time/14:14CEST on 14 April 2023 to begin its eight-year journey to Jupiter, where it will study in detail the gas giant planet?s three large ocean-bearing moons: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. Juice ? Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer ??is humankind?s next bold mission to the outer Solar System. This ambitious mission will?characterise Ganymede, Callisto and Europa with a powerful suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments to discover more about these compelling destinations as potential habitats for past or present life. Juice will monitor Jupiter?s complex magnetic, radiation and plasma environment in depth and its interplay with the moons, studying the Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giant systems across the Universe. Following launch, Juice will embark on an eight-year journey to Jupiter, arriving in July 2031 with the aid of momentum and direction gained from four gravity-assist fly-bys of the Earth-Moon system, Venus and, twice, Earth. Flight VA260 is the final Ariane 5 flight to carry an ESA mission to space.

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Solar wind that blasts from sun may be driven by tiny plasma flares

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A close-up of the sun showing solar wind emerging

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Mysterious dark spot on Neptune seen from Earth for the first time

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All of Neptune’s clouds have vanished – it may be because of the sun

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Our solar system might be 1.1 million years older than we thought

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Our solar system might be 1.1 million years older than we thought

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This artist concept portrays the star PDS 70 and its inner protoplanetary disc

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Water seen in young planet system shows Earth may have always been wet

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Could we put out the sun with a sun-sized orb of water?

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Our solar system could be hiding an extra planet the size of Uranus

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Orion Nebula in Infrared NASA ID: PIA25434 This new image of the Orion Nebula produced using previously released data from three telescopes shows two enormous caverns carved out by unseen giant stars that can release up to a million times more light than our Sun. All that radiation breaks apart dust grains there, helping to create the pair of cavities. Much of the remaining dust is swept away when the stars produce wind or when they die explosive deaths as supernovae. This infrared image shows dust but no stars. Blue light indicates warm dust heated by unseen massive stars. Observed in infrared light ? a range of wavelengths outside what human eyes can detect ? the views were provided by NASA's retired Spitzer Space Telescope and the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which now operates under the moniker NEOWISE. Spitzer and WISE were both managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, ...more 508 Description:This infrared image of the Orion Nebula features plenty of dust but no stars. In these infrared wavelengths, it's possible to see hot spots where new stars are forming, while unseen bright, massive stars have carved out caverns of empty space. Date Created:2022-11-22 Center:JPL Keywords: Herschel Space Observatory , Spitzer Space Telescope , Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) , Orion Nebula Secondary Creator Credit: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech Visit JPL Website

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Under Alien Skies review: A terrific guide to our spectacular universe

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What are the prospects for life on the icy moons Europa and Enceladus?

As far as we know, there are three main ingredients required for life: liquid water, an energy source and complex chemistry. Do Europa or Enceladus have them all?

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Breathtaking JWST image of Uranus shows rings, clouds and a polar cap

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Several dust rings are illustrated circling the Sun. In line with these rings' position around the Sun are the planets Mercury, Venus, and Earth.

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Weird dust ring orbits the sun alongside Mercury and we don't know why

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Visualisation of the dwarf planet Quaoar

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Dwarf planet Quaoar has a weirdly big ring of debris encircling it

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View of asteroid Ryugu from Hayabusa 2. Credits: JAXA, University of Tokyo & collaborators

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Hayabusa 2 has brought back gases from an asteroid for the first time

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