Juice’s impact into Ganymede

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, is set to embark on an eight-year cruise to Jupiter starting April 2023. The mission will investigate the emergence of habitable worlds around gas giants and the Jupiter system as an archetype for the numerous giant planets now known to orbit other stars.

It will be the first spacecraft to orbit another planet’s moon – Ganymede, the largest moon in the Solar System. Over time, Juice’s orbit around Ganymede will naturally decay – eventually there will not be enough propellant to maintain it – and it will make a grazing impact onto the surface, as depicted in this video.

Ganymede is unique in the Solar System in that it is the only moon to have a magnetosphere. Juice will investigate this phenomenon and the moon’s internal magnetic field, and explore how its plasma environment interacts with that of Jupiter. Juice will also study Ganymede’s atmosphere, surface, subsurface, interior and internal ocean, investigating the moon as not only a planetary object but also a possible habitat.

Watch the full sequence of Juice’s journey to, and tour of, Jupiter and its icy moons.

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