JUICE, the ESA spacecraft mission to Jupiter’s icy moons by Prof Michele Dougherty

JUICE - JUpiter ICy moons Explorer – was successfully launched from Kourou in French Guiana in April 2023. It will spend at least three years making detailed observations of the giant gaseous planet Jupiter and three of its largest moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. Iconic missions to the outer solar system like Voyager 1 and 2, Galileo, and Cassini gave us a close look at the giant planets’ largest moons. Once thought of as inactive, cold conglomerates of ice and rock, we know that these distant moons are planet-like worlds with rich histories. While our search for life in the universe was once restricted to Earth-like planets, with terrestrial atmospheres and surface oceans, such icy moons with potentially habitable underground oceans offer new horizons. Jupiter’s three largest icy moons — Europa, Ganymede and Callisto — all show hints of hosting liquid water oceans beneath their crusts. On Earth, life thrives…