In this case Juice is not something to drink, the Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer, is the mission of the European Space Agency, travelling to discover Jupiter’s secrets.
After a journey of approximately eight years, the spacecraft will reach the orbit of the Gas Giant by carrying out a series of flybys to complete a complex series of tasks over the course of three years. It will study the planet’s atmosphere and magnetosphere. It will analise the potential habitability of its moons, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto, which could host immense oceans of water under the frozen surface.
The 14th of April (2023) Juice leaved the Earth to start its complex work. The predictions say that it will probably land on the 2031. It will be necessary four “flyby” around the Earth and Venus to reach Jupiter.
In honor of its discoveries, Juice hosts a commemorative plate dedicated to Galileo Galilei. The images used to create the plate are a copy from the Sidereus Nuncius. In 1610, Galilei was the first to observe Jupiter and its four largest moons through a telescope, noting that these four small bodies, known since then as “Galilean satellites”, changed position at night after night.
