In spring 2023, the time will have come: The JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) space probe of the European Space Agency ESA will begin its journey into space. The Jupiter system is almost 780 million kilometers away from the sun and an icy, dark world: The average temperature on the surface of the icy moons is below minus 140 degrees Celsius.

After an almost eight-year journey, JUICE will arrive at Jupiter to explore the largest planet in our solar system and three of its 79 moons. The icy moons are called Ganymede, Callisto and Europe.

Besides fundamental questions on the formation of planets and their moons, it is also a question of whether Europe and Ganymede are potential habitats, and in the best case, to identify signs of life. Data from earlier space missions and model calculations suggest that there are subterranean oceans far below the external ice layer of Ganymede and Europe.

According to current knowledge, the oceans have all of the properties which are not only needed for the occurrence of life, but also which provide environments in which life can exist in the long term.

There will be eleven instruments on board of JUICE. One of them is the Neutral and Ion Mass Spectrometer (NIM), developed and built under the direction of Peter Wurz from the Physics Institute at the University of Bern.

More about the JUICE space mission and how the Bernese NIM mass spectrometer will help in the search for life can be seen in the following video, which was produced by the iLUB Support Center for ICT-Aided Teaching and Research in cooperation with the Space Research and Planetology division of the Physics Institute:

Besides the NIM mass spectrometer, two other instruments with participation from Bern will be on board of JUICE. On the one hand, the GALA laser altimeter, for which the 'Range Finder Module' was developed at the Physics Institute under the direction of Nicolas Thomas.

GALA will investigate the topography of Ganymede. On the other hand, the Institute of Applied Physics under the direction of Axel Murk has developed the optics and the calibration unit for the Submillimeter Wave Instrument (SWI). The SWI will measure Jupiter's stratosphere and the atmospheres and surfaces of Jupiter's icy moons.

Related Links
Space Research and Planetology University of Bern
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Juno captures moon shadow on Jupiter
San Antonio TX (SPX) May 01, 2022
NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this view of Jupiter during the mission's 40th close pass by the giant planet on Feb. 25, 2022. The large, dark shadow on the left side of the image was cast by Jupiter's moon Ganymede. Citizen scientist Thomas Thomopoulos created this enhanced-color image using raw data from the JunoCam instrument (Figure A). At the time the raw image was taken, the Juno spacecraft was about 44,000 miles (71,000 kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops, at a latitude of about 55 degr ... read more