NASA has sent many space probes to study things beyond our exosphere. The nearing flyby of the Juno spacecraft is arguably one of the most significant missions for NASA as it will fly extremely close to Europa, one of Jupiter's 80 moons.
Juno was launched on Aug. 5, 2011, and arrived at Jupiter after almost five years. It is now set to probe the said cosmic body to gather data on the moon's interior, surface composition, and ionosphere. Another task for the Juno spacecraft is to take high-resolution photos for people to have a peek at the famous ice-covered moon.
As mentioned in an article by CNET, NASA claims that "Scientists think a salty ocean lies below a miles-thick ice shell, sparking questions about potential conditions capable of supporting life underneath Europa's surface," which makes the data they will retrieve absolutely important.
NASA will start collecting data an hour before they reach the closest proximity which is 51,820 miles (83,397 kilometers) from Europa.
John Bordi mentioned that the space probe's relative velocity between spacecraft and moon will be 14.7 miles per second (23.6 kilometers per second), which is pretty fast.
What Kind of Data Will Juno Obtain?
One of the many things that NASA wants to discover about Europa is its interaction with the gas giant's magnetosphere.
Europa has an equatorial diameter of 1,940 miles (3,100 kilometers), which means that it's just slightly smaller, or more accurately, 90% of the size of our moon. Scientists believe that there is a salty ocean below its remarkably thick ice shell.
With that belief, those scientists speculated that underneath Europa's surface may hold the potential conditions to support life.
The data on Europa's ionosphere will be collected by Juno's Jupiter Energetic-Particle Detector Instrument (JEDI) and its medium-gain (X-band) radio antenna as it measures plasma in the moon's wake with its Waves, Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment (JADE), and Magnetometer (MAG).
"We have the right equipment to do the job, but to capture a plume will require a lot of luck," says Bolton according to NASA's official website.
Diving Into Europa
The data that Juno will gather could be beneficial to future missions and to the agency's Europa Clippers. Which is set to launch in 2024.
Scott Bolton the, Juno Principal Investigator of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said that they would be happy to provide data that would help the Europa Clipper team with mission planning and provide new scientific insights.
Juno's Microwave Radiometer (MWR) will allow NASA to look into Europa's ice crust and obtain data on its composition and temperature. They will compare the images they will acquire to the images taken from previous missions to determine if there have been changes in the last two decades.
The space probe's star camera (called the Stellar Reference Unit) will take a high-resolution black-and-white image of Europa's surface, while they attempt to take infrared images of the icy moon's surface using the probe's Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM).
