The Hunt to Find Life on Jupiter’s Icy Moons

The Hunt to Find Life on Jupiter’s Icy Moons

Understanding Jupiter’s icy moons could help us answer some of the biggest questions about our solar system, like how exactly did life form? That’s exactly what the European Space Agency’s JUICE mission hopes to find out.

From its familiar stripes to its giant red spot, Jupiter has mesmerized scientists for centuries. It’s the largest planet in our solar system, and its icy moons could harbor key ingredients for life. And now ESA is on a mission to make history and gain a better understanding of what may lie beneath the icy crusts of the planet’s moons.

The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE, is ESA’s mission to study if the icy moons around Jupiter are as habitable as scientists think. The single orbital spacecraft will orbit Europa and Callisto, but will make history as it orbits Ganymede for the first time ever.

It’s not every day that we send a spacecraft to Jupiter, so JUICE will be equipped with ten instruments, all working together to try and capture as much data as possible hopefully leaving us with a better understanding of our solar system’s largest planet and its mysterious moons.