Forget searching for water on Mars, because Jupiter’s about to have juice. Really. Last week, the European Space Agency announced its plan to send a robotic mission to explore the gas giant and three of its moons. The mission is called the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer – JUICE – and it's planning a pretty ambitious tour of the Jovian system.Set to launch in 2022, the central piece of the JUICE mission is a solar powered spacecraft that will reach Jupiter after a seven and a half year journey. Once there, it will turn its attention to three giant's moons.JUICE will visit Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system that's actually bigger than the planet Mercury. Scientists suspect the moon has an ocean concealed under its icy surface that is kept in a liquid state thanks to the heat generated by a molten iron core. A molten core would also be responsible for the magnetic field Ganymede has that is strikingly similar to Earth's. But for the time being, no one's sure how these features, if they do in fact exist on Ganymede, work. JUICE would shed a lot of light on this Jovian mystery.Next the spacecraft will look at ice-coated Europa. This moon's smooth surface is riddled with cracks and jumbled mounds of frozen material that are clear indicators of an ocean under its surface. Scientists think water rushes up through newly formed cracks on the moon's surface then freezes instantly, which would give future probes a way to break through to the water beneath. What's still a mystery is how deep Europa's oceans are and their exact composition.The draw towards Europa and Ganymede is clear – "follow the water" has been a guideline in spaceflight for decades since on Earth water usually leads to life. If subsurface oceans are confirmed on both moons, it wouldn't be unreasonable to search for sign of life lurking within. If life can thrive on Earth far from the sun thanks to hydrothermal vents, who's to say the same process can't be in place on Jupiter's moons?JUICE's final target moon is Callisto. Smaller than Ganymede and Europa, the spacecraft will take detailed images of the moon, which is thought to be the most cratered body in the solar system.Investigating these three moons isn't the only reason for going all that way. JUICE will devote time to studying Jupiter. It will measure its absolutely massive magnetosphere, search for aurorae in its upper atmosphere, and investigate how the moons interact with the planet. But there's a much bigger reason to spend the time studying Jupiter up close. “Jupiter is the archetype for the giant planets of the Solar System and for many giant planets being found around other stars,” said Alvaro Giménez Cañete, ESA’s director of Science and Robotic Exploration, in statement. “JUICE will give us better insight into how gas giants and their orbiting worlds form, and their potential for hosting life.”Under ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 program, JUICE was originally designed as a joint program with NASA. But the US space agency pulled out like it did from the ExoMars mission because the financial burden was too high. Backing the mission alone, ESA will cover the estimated at $1.1 billion (830 million euros) price tag associated with JUICE. Robert Pappalardo, a mission scientist from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said the space agency may still supply some instruments for the spacecraft "assuming that the funding situation in the United States can bear it."Whether or not NASA contributes, it's certain to be a fascinating mission. And with the possibility that a greater understanding of Jupiter will help us find exoplanets, we might have to change the space exploration mantra from "follow the water" to "follow the JUICE."
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