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  • 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 understanding them 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.

  • The satellites of Jupiter are very interesting because there is probably more liquid water inside some of their satellite than on Earth.

  • So it became a fascinating question where they're around the planet like Jupiter, we might have places which are may be interesting for life.

  • Jupiter, icy moons, explorer or juice is, he says.

  • Mission to study If the icy moons around Jupiter are is 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.

  • We're going to study the entire off the moon, the soups, your face, your face, the little atmosphere around the moon, the plasma environment.

  • So it's quite interesting because you are not going to address only one question.

  • But several questions.

  • Thanks to measurements collected by NASA's Galileo probe, we now have a better idea of what may lie beneath the icy crust of these moons.

  • The presence of salty water and Europa is believed to have the most with an ocean containing more liquid than all of Earth's oceans combined.

  • Then we come to the apple of juices I Ganymede.

  • It's the primary focus for this mission, since its Jupiter's largest moon and has its own magnetic field.

  • Last but not least, is Callisto Because of its ancient and heavily cratered surface, Callisto was long believed to be geologically inactive, but that might not be true.

  • This moon may also hold an underwater ocean, the three moons that are in different state of evolution.

  • One is very active.

  • One is there is an internal magnetic field on one looks dead.

  • So it very interesting to compare the streamers and to understand better the commission of habitability around Jupiter.

  • It's not every day that we send a spacecraft to Jupiter, so juice will be equipped with 10 instruments, all working together to try and capture as much data as possible.

  • Form will be remote sensing instruments capable of capturing ultraviolet to the sub millimeter wave likes to better study Jupiter's clouds, atmosphere and its satellites icy surfaces.

  • The next batch are the Geophysical instruments that will study the surface and subsurface of the moons, as well as explored the atmosphere and measured the gravitational field.

  • Finally, we have the in situ instruments composed of sensors to study the particle environment, electric and magnetic fields.

  • I like all the experiment.

  • In fact, they have been selected to be complementary to each other.

  • If I take the example off exploring the subsurface ocean, we don't see the ocean, so it's always an indirect German, so it's better to have measurement from different instrument to make sure we know exactly what we are talking about.

  • But figuring out how to power the instruments and the spacecraft was a challenge.

  • Since Jupiter is roughly 777 million kilometers away from the sun, this makes it much harder to use solar power.

  • So to capture as much sunlight as possible, juice will use massive solar arrays about 85 square meters in size, despite being the largest solar panels ever placed on a spacecraft will provide less than 1000 watts of power, which is less power than a home vacuum cleaner.

  • And total.

  • The instruments and solar arrays will account for less than half the spacecrafts five metric tons size, while the rest is chemical propellant to help steer the spacecraft for its orbital insertions.

  • So what can we expect when it actually launches well right now, Juice is slated to lift off in 2022 aboard and Arianna five rocket.

  • But the launch will only be the first step.

  • We're going to make three orbits around the sun to get more and more velocity with different gravity.

  • Assist fly by eyes.

  • So three of my guys off the earth one fly by all beginners and one fly by off Mass.

  • 7.5 years after its initial launch, juice will finally arrive at Jupiter, and then, after our fears, that would be the most exciting part of the mission.

  • I'm sure.

  • Well, a bit around Ganymede.

  • So first time we did with that after collecting tons of images and details of the largest moon, it's at this point that juice will make a planned crash onto Ganymede surface, hopefully leaving us for the better understanding of our solar system's largest planet and its mysterious moons, and we are juiced for the results.

  • When we talk about this mission to people, they always get excited because it touched possible life outside earth on the Jupiter moon.

  • I mean, they were discovered by Galileo in 16 10 and that was the way people feel differently about the solar system.

  • So this mission is very exciting from any point of view, and I think it's the right moment to do this.

  • Dis mission For more countdown to launch, Check out our playlist here.

  • And if you like this episode, let us know in the comments below.

  • Keep coming back to seeker for all your rocket launch news and thanks for watching.

from its familiar stripes to its giant red spot, Jupiter has mesmerized scientists for centuries.

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