From a distance of 350 km, the spacecraft "Juno" captures the closest image of Jupiter's moon "Europe"
On the morning of Thursday, September 29, 2022, the Juno spacecraft managed to fly just 350 kilometers from Europa, Jupiter's icy giant moon. That trip provided us with the closest human glimpse into that frozen world for twenty years.
The Juno mission was launched in 2011 to study the solar system's largest planet, Jupiter. Juno's team has used its sensor to explore Jupiter's moons, including Europa, Ganymede and Lu, after its primary mission successfully completed in 2021.
During its last flight, Juno made several important observations of Europe, including taking high-resolution images of the moon's surface. Juno's visit to Europa is the second after NASA's Galileo spacecraft mission.
"The first image is a small glimpse into the extraordinary new knowledge that will come to us from the equipment and sensors that succeeded in collecting information while flying over the icy crust of the moon," said Scott Bolton, the lead researcher on the Juno mission.
The first images of Europa's surface began arriving at Earth on Thursday evening, September 29. These recent images, along with the old ones from the Galileo spacecraft, provide an important glimpse into the frozen world.
After analyzing the new images, the researchers seek to compare them with the images of previous missions, with the aim of knowing the changes that occurred on the icy surface of the moon during the previous decades.
"The team will compare the Juno image set to images from previous missions, looking for any potential changes to Europe's surface over the last two decades," says co-author Candy Hansen. Juno's camera will complement the current geological map, replacing existing low-resolution images of the moon's surface."
Europa has a crust of ice, which is likely to be between 16 and 24 km thick. Scientists expect that there is a salty water ocean beneath the surface, at a depth of 65-160 kilometers. This is critical in our search for extraterrestrial life, because liquid water is the most important building block for life.
Juno is armed with advanced equipment that can probe the depths of the moon, deep below the icy surface, in order to gather data on its composition and temperature.
Close-up images from the Galileo spacecraft in 1997 show Europa's surface covered with fissures crisscrossing its icy surface.
Previous missions detected plumes of water vapor rising through the ice crust. Juno's research team is still examining images from the latest mission, and the scientists hope to be able to capture images of the steam plumes erupting from Europa's surface.
What the Juno mission will achieve from that low flyby near the surface of the moon Europa, will contribute to supplying the next missions with basic information, foremost of which is the spacecraft dedicated to NASA’s Europa probe, which is scheduled to launch in 2024 with the aim of obtaining more information about the ocean beneath its outer crust, and its interactions with the surface. .
"Thanks to the ingenuity of the navigation team, Juno's trajectory has been adjusted so that it passes through the orbit of the moon in time, providing us with very valuable information for the next Europa mission," wrote Gregory Dubus, systems engineer on the Europa probe.
Perhaps this mission will contribute to scientists reaching the exact truth of the hidden ocean, and the answer to the question: Can Europa's moon provide a suitable environment for life?
Source: websites