Consider the following statements regarding Juice space mission, recen...
Only Statement 2 is correct.
The European Space Agency (ESA) launched the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or Juice, mission from its spaceport in French Guiana on an Ariane 5 launcher. Planned to reach Jupiter in 2031, the mission aims to carry out a detailed exploration of the Solar System’s largest planet and its icy moons, which potentially have habitable environments.
Only two other spacecraft have ever examined Jupiter: the Galileo probe, which orbited the gas giant between 1995 and 2003, and Juno, which has been circling the planet since 2016. Notably, by the time Juice reaches Jupiter, another spacecraft, NASA’s Europa Clipper, would already be orbiting the planet — scheduled to be launched in October this year, Europa Clipper would arrive at Jupiter in 2030 and aims to study its Europa moon.
According to ESA’s website, the Juice “will make detailed observations of the giant gas planet and its three large ocean-bearing moons — Ganymede, Callisto and Europa”, by using remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments.
Scientists for quite some time have known that these three moons of Jupiter possess icy crusts, which they believe contain oceans of liquid water underneath, making them potentially habitable. Juice will help probe these water bodies by creating detailed maps of the moons’ surfaces and enable the scientists, for the first time, to look beneath them.