--- title: "Scientists Launch JUICE Mission to Distant Worlds" description: "The European Space Agency has successfully launched an exciting new deep space mission called JUICE to visit Jupiter's icy moons." date: "2023-04-14" modified: "2023-04-14" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-launch-juice-mission-to-distant-worlds" categories: - "Off-World" - "Space" tags: - "ESA" - "juice" - "jupiter" - "jupiter's moons" - "the digest" --- # Scientists Launch JUICE Mission to Distant Worlds ![The European Space Agency has successfully launched an exciting new deep space mission called JUICE to visit Jupiter's icy moons.]() *\Image: ESA\* ## Lucid Dreams The European Space Agency [has successfully launched]() an exciting new deep space mission to visit Jupiter's icy moons, which are considered to be some of the [best]() [places]() to search for extraterrestrial life in our entire solar system. The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE for short, launched from the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana Friday morning, aboard an ESA Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket. The launch has been a resounding success so far, with the ESA confirming the deployment of JUICE's solar array soon afterward. "We are on the way to Jupiter and its ocean worlds!" the mission's official Twitter account [wrote](). "With the critical milestone of solar array deployment completed, we have a mission!" https://twitter.com/ESA_JUICE/status/1646869785114812418 ## Icy Moons There are dozens of moons orbiting Jupiter, the largest planet orbiting the Sun. Some of them are pretty huge and, according to scientists, may feature massive subsurface oceans that could potentially harbor life beneath a thick, protective layer of ice. The JUICE mission will be doing flybys of three of Jupiter's most fascinating moons — Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede — while collecting data with a variety of scientific instruments. ## Epic Journey We'll have to be patient, however, until JUICE reaches its final destination. Its epic journey will take over eight long years, including several gravitational assist swings around Venus, Mars, and Earth. Once in the vicinity of Jupiter, the spacecraft will make a total of 35 planned flybys, probing the three moons' oceans for more data. The ESA is hoping to get within just a couple of hundred miles of the surface of these moons, giving them the most detailed look yet. "This is one of the most exciting missions we have ever flown in the solar system, by far the most complex," Josef Aschbacher, the head of ESA, told the *New York Times*. But if everything goes according to plan, it might have the best shot yet at discovering the first extraterrestrial signs of life. "For habitability, you need liquid water, a heat source, and organic materials," Michele Dougherty, principal investigator of one of the spacecraft's instruments, told the *NYT*. "If we confirm or deny those three things, we’ve done what we said we were going to do." **More on the mission:** *[NASA's Hubble Finds Evidence of Water Vapor on One]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()