Juno flew as close as possible to the icy moon of Jupiter. There may be life on it

On Thursday, September 29, at 2:36 am Pacific time (13:36 Moscow time) the spacecraft

NASA's Juno came within 358 km ofsurface of Jupiter's natural satellite, Europa. The probe is expected to capture the highest resolution images of the icy moon in history. It will also collect valuable data about its interior, surface composition and ionosphere, as well as its interaction with Jupiter's magnetosphere.

This information will be useful for future missionsto the moons of the gas giant, including Europa Clipper. Its launch is scheduled for 2024. “Europa is Jupiter’s most intriguing moon. It's now NASA's focus, said Juno mission principal investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “We are pleased to provide data that will assist the Europa Clipper team in mission planning, as well as provide new scientific data about this icy world.”

This figure shows the orbits of the spacecraft around Jupiter.
Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI

Europa's equatorial diameter is 3,100 kilometers and is about 90% the size of Earth's Moon. Scientists believe that beneath the ice shell there is a salty ocean several kilometers thick.

A close flyby changed the trajectory of Juno,reducing the time it takes to orbit Jupiter from 43 to 38 days. This is the closest approach by a NASA spacecraft to Europa since the Galileo probe came within 351 km of it on January 3, 2000. The mission explored Ganymede in June 2021 and plans to approach Io in 2023 and 2024.

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Cover photo: A false-color image of Europa shows the moon's amazing surface. The inset shows areas where crustal slabs appear to have fractured.
Source: NASA/JPL