The European Space Agency is about to send a spacecraft to explore Jupiter and three of its largest and most intriguing moons.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission, or Juice, was expected to lift off Thursday at 8:15 a.m. ET aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. But a lightning risk postponed the launch, which has been rescheduled for Friday at 8:14 a.m. ET.Weather can often cause launch delays and postponements. Specific weather criteria must be met in order for rockets to safely lift off.
Ganymede, Callisto and Europa are ice-covered worlds that may contain subsurface oceans that are potentially habitable for life. Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system, larger than Pluto and Mercury, and it’s the only one that has a magnetic field similar to Earth. Juice’s instruments can reveal the moon’s rotation, gravity, shape, interior structure and composition and peer through its icy crust using radar.
Previous missions like Galileo and Cassini, which visited Saturn and its moons, confirmed that liquid water can be found on planets and moons far away from the sun — and that water is likely to exist under the surface.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
World Bank chief says Western European countries need to help fund Ukraine reconstructionThe World Bank is ready to do its part in rebuilding Ukraine after the devastation of Russia&39;s invasion, but international financial institutions cannot shoulder the sums involved alone and Western European countries will have to chip in, World Bank president David Malpass said on Tuesday.
Read more »
Trust fund for proposed water agency pushed | Jovee Marie de la CruzLawmakers are pushing for the creation of a trust fund under the Department of Water Resources (DWR) to finance water sustainability projects in the country. Davao City Rep. Paolo Z. Duterte said the bill creating the Department of Water Resources (DWR), as the lead agency tasked to secure the country’s…
Read more »
Head of Mexican immigration agency charged after fatal fire | The Associated PressMEXICO CITY—The head of Mexico’s National Immigration Institute will face criminal charges for a fire that killed 40 migrants in a locked cell, the federal Attorney General’s Office said Tuesday night. The office said in a statement that the head of the immigration agency, Francisco Garduño, was criminally remiss in…
Read more »
Europe's JUICE mission to launch for Jupiter's icy moonsKOUROU, France: The European Space Agency's JUICE spacecraft is to blast off Thursday on an eight-year journey through the Solar System to discover whether Jupiter's icy moons are capable of hosting extraterrestrial life in their vast, hidden oceans.
Read more »
Malacañang leads meeting for FIBA World Cup hosting | BusinessMirrorTHE Philippine Sports Commission-led Inter-Agency Task Force for the country’s hosting of the FIBA World Cup convened in Malacañang on Wednesday with President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. reiterating his support to the event set from August 25 to September 10. “This Administration is committed to providing the Inter-Agency Task Force…
Read more »
Japan’s ispace launches commercial moon lander, in potential world firstThe national space agencies of the United States, Russia, and China have achieved soft landings on Earth’s nearest neighbor in the past half century but no companies have.
Read more »