OXFORD UNIVERSITY NEWS RELEASE:
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| The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) will explore the giant planet and its diverse collection of icy worlds, from volcanic Io, to the waterworlds Europa and Ganymede, to the ancient cratered terrain of Callisto. |
Billion euro Jupiter mission approved
Joint release on behalf of Imperial
College London, Oxford University, University of Leicester, and
University College London; with thanks to Pete Wilton of the Oxford
University Press Office.
The European Space Agency (ESA) has
approved a new mission to explore Jupiter and its icy moons to reveal
fresh insights into the habitability of the ‘waterworlds’ orbiting the
giant planets in our solar system and beyond.
On 2 May 2012, at a meeting in Paris,
ESA’s Science Program Committee voted to go ahead with the project, the
Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE), the first European-led mission to
the outer solar system, and the first spacecraft destined to orbit an
icy moon. The JUICE spacecraft is scheduled to launch in 2022, arriving
in the Jupiter system in 2030.
Approval for the estimated billion
euro contract for the mission came with UK researchers deeply involved
in the leadership and planning for JUICE and playing a vital role in
gaining approval for the mission ahead of rival bids. The proposal was
led by a UK scientist and UK scientists make up four of the 15 members
of the ESA Science Study Team for JUICE with the team including
researchers from Imperial College London, Oxford University, University
of Leicester, and UCL (University College London).
The primary target of the mission is
the solar system’s largest moon, Ganymede, an icy world 8% larger than
the planet Mercury. Ganymede is unique within the solar system – it is
thought to harbour a deep ocean under the icy crust, it has its own
internally generated magnetic field, and it has an ancient surface
littered with more individual types of crater than anywhere else in the
solar system.
If moons are common features of giant
planets around other stars, then Ganymede may represent a whole class of
potentially habitable environments in our galaxy. JUICE will carry
experiments designed to study the sub-surface ocean, the geology and
composition of the surface, and its interaction with its plasma
environment, to assess its potential as a habitable environment in our
solar system. The spacecraft will also investigate Jupiter’s other icy
worlds, Callisto and Europa, as well as the giant planet’s complex
atmosphere and extended magnetosphere.
Imperial, Oxford, Leicester and UCL
will be among the UK institutions working to propose experiments to be
carried as part of the spacecraft payload. These instruments will be
specifically designed to study the gas giant, its icy moons and charged
particle environment to an unprecedented level of detail, giving our
most detailed characterisation of the Jovian system ever obtained.
Professor Michele Dougherty of
Imperial College London, lead scientist for the JUICE proposal, said:
‘Ever since Galileo’s discovery of the four largest moons of Jupiter,
we’ve wondered what it must be like on their icy surfaces, looking into a
night sky dominated by the gas giant Jupiter. From the volcanic moon
Io, to the potential sub-surface oceans of Europa and Ganymede and the
ancient cratered terrain of Callisto, these four moons are fascinating
worlds in their own right.’
As well as making close measurements
of the surface, sub-surface, magnetic and plasma environment of Ganymede
the mission will also focus on the other icy moons; performing multiple
flybys of Callisto and two flybys of Europa. By studying all three of
these icy environments the mission’s studies of Ganymede will take on a
broader significance.
Dr Leigh Fletcher of Oxford
University, a member of the ESA Science Study Team for JUICE, said:
‘Scientists have had a lot of success detecting the giant planets
orbiting distant stars, but the really exciting prospect may be the
existence of potentially habitable ‘waterworlds’ that could be a lot
like Ganymede or Europa. One of the main aims of the mission is to try
to understand whether a ‘waterworld’ such as Ganymede might be the sort
of environment that could harbour life.’
In order to assess whether Jupiter and
its moons could provide habitable environments, and provide a model for
gas giant systems orbiting other stars, the spacecraft will make an
extensive study of the planet’s dynamic, evolving atmosphere, with its
belts, zones and gigantic swirling storms, over the 3-year duration of
the mission. JUICE will also study the magnetic and charged particle
environment of Jupiter, which has the largest magnetosphere in the solar
system, and its coupling to the moons (particularly Ganymede).
Dr Emma Bunce of the University of
Leicester, deputy lead scientist for the JUICE proposal, said: ‘We need
to place the possible habitability of these “waterworlds” into some
broader context, and JUICE will do that by also studying the surrounding
environment. Ganymede is strongly coupled to its parent Jupiter -
through gravitational and electromagnetic forces – studying this
interaction gives us further insight into its unique place in the solar
system.’
Professor Andrew Coates of UCL, a
member of the ESA Science Study Team, said: ‘Studying these watery
worlds is the next vital step beyond Mars in the search for the
conditions for life in our solar system. Ganymede’s unique magnetic
shield helps protect it somewhat from Jupiter’s harsh radiation belts
and rapidly rotating magnetosphere, and we want to understand its
effectiveness. Europa and Callisto provide key comparisons as we search
for the solar system’s ‘sweet spots’ for habitability.’
The data JUICE will send back about
the varied environments of Jupiter and its icy moons will benefit many
areas of science with geologists, astrobiologists, space and atmospheric
physicists all queuing up to see how the mission’s findings will affect
their disciplines.
The announcement will lead to further
opportunities for British companies as they look to bid for contracts to
build elements of the JUICE spacecraft and its instruments. The UK
Space Agency estimates that the space industry's overall contribution to
UK GDP is £7.9 billion and that it employs nearly 27,000 people, with
around 60,000 more jobs enabled by the space sector.
For further information contact:
Professor Michele Dougherty of Imperial College London on mobile; +44 (0)7990 973761 or email m.dougherty@imperial.ac.uk OR Simon Levey on +44 (0)207 5946702 or email s.levey@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Leigh Fletcher of Oxford University on +44 (0)1865 272089 or email fletcher@atm.ox.ac.uk
Dr Emma Bunce of the University of Leicester on +44 (0)116 2523541 or email emma.bunce@ion.le.ac.uk
Professor Andrew Coates of University College London on mobile; +44 (0)7788 448318 or email ajc@mssl.ucl.ac.uk
Alternatively contact the University of Oxford Press Office on +44 (0)1865 283877 or email press.office@admin.ox.ac.uk
Notes to editors
*Suggested images: More JUICE images are available here: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=50086&farchive_objecttypeid=18,19,22&farchive_objectid=30912&fareaid_2=129
*The selection of the Jupiter mission
is the culmination of five years of hard work by the ESA team of
scientists and engineers. ESA’s Cosmic Vision L-class competition
started in March 2007 with a call to the scientific community to propose
new ideas for future exploration. A previous incarnation of JUICE was
selected as one of three finalists (JUICE, Athena, and NGO), which have
been going head-to-head in the ESA studies since 2010. At that time, all
three proposals had significant US involvement, and the Jupiter mission
was known as the Europa Jupiter System Mission (EJSM/Laplace). However,
in March 2011, NASA withdrew from the L Class missions in general, and
the reformulation phase began to rework the three proposals into
European-led missions, leading to the evolution of the JUICE spacecraft.
*The JUICE mission relies on a strong
heritage of outer solar system exploration by UK scientists, such as
those involved in the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan.
*For more on how the space industry benefits the UK see: ‘The Size and Health of the UK Space Industry’, November 2012: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/ukspaceagency/docs/industry/oxecon%20executive%20summary%20for%20final%20web%20version.pdf
