Ganymede probably has some special features. It’s not just Jupiter’s largest moon, but the largest in the entire solar system by far, about the size of Mercury and our moon. set. It hosts about six times as much liquid water as Earth, but it could be hidden under 100 miles of ice, Witasse says. Ganymede is also unique in possessing an iron core that generates the moon’s own magnetic field, the only rocky body in the solar system to do so besides Mercury and Earth. Its magnetic field may have originated from its proximity to Jupiter, which could have caused tidal flexing of its internal structure.
Juice comes equipped with numerous tools for scientists to examine these celestial bodies from afar, including a high-resolution optical camera called the Janus, a laser altimeter called GALA to measure the tidal warping of Ganymede by Jupiter’s gravitational pull, an instrument a submillimetre wave magnetometer called SWI to examine Jupiter’s atmosphere and a magnetometer called J-Mag to study the interaction of the magnetic fields of Jupiter and Ganymede. “The spacecraft’s full suite of state-of-the-art instruments makes Juice the next step in science,” says Alessandro Atzei, the project’s payload system engineer. “We expect many new findings, including the composition of the magnetic field, the material of the moons, and an understanding of Jupiter’s atmosphere.”
Atzei also highlights the spacecraft’s ice penetrating radar and its gravity probe, dubbed RIME and 3GM, respectively. The radar will be able to detect pockets of groundwater down to a depth of about 10 kilometers, and is probably sensitive enough to detect them below the surface of Europa, but not Ganymede. The gravity probe can provide information about Ganymede’s internal ocean and could conclusively determine whether Callisto has a deeper ocean below ground.
Juice follows a long line of space probes to the outer planets. NASA Pioneer 10 flew by Jupiter in 1973, and both Voyager spacecraft followed six years later. He The Galileo spacecraft orbited Jupiter for years beginning in 1995, which led to the discovery of the moon’s magnetic field. Today, NASA’s Juno orbiter is still running its extended mission: On April 8, it completed its 50th close pass of Jupiter since 2016. It’s hard to predict whether Juno will keep moving forward when Juice arrives, but the new spacecraft will build on its foundation. . the achievements and legacy of his predecessor.
“Our radiometer saw through the ice on Europa and Ganymede for the first time, and its radar instrument is designed to do it in a different way,” says Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator and astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute. “Your data set will inform us so we can look back and reinterpret the Juno data.”
Juno has revealed stunning views of Jupiter mysterious auroras and swirling polar cyclonesand mapped a strange patch of the planet’s magnetic field nicknamed the Great Blue Spot. (It’s different from the iconic red storm the size of the earth.) Juno’s solar power system and its shielded vault, which protects sensitive electronics from Jovian radiation, proved such an effective design that Juice’s engineers adopted something similar. There will also be some synergy between Juice and the next NASA project. Clipper European orbiter planned to launch next year and arrive in 2030.