Next stop Jupiter

If you had to decide which moon in the solar system to explore, where would you go? With so many to choose from, it’s not an easy decision.

After many meetings, scientists from the European Space Agency and NASA recently agreed to send robotic spacecraft to two of Jupiter’s moons – Europa and Ganymede.

NASA will build the spacecraft that will travel to Europa, which scientists believe has an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy surface.

If water does exist there, along with heat and nutrients (new-TRI-ants), then it may be home to alien life.

“Europa is just a tremendously exciting water world. It has an underground ocean with probably more water in it than the Earth does,” said NASA scientist Jim Green.

The second spacecraft, being built by the Europeans, will orbit the largest moon in the solar system – Ganymede.

Called Laplace, the spacecraft will use special cameras to look below the moon’s icy surface and study its magnetic field. It will also study the planet Jupiter and its other moons, including Io and Callisto.

Both spacecraft are expected to launch in 2020 and arrive at Jupiter five years later. After spending 2026 orbiting the moons, the spacecraft will then crash into the surface.

The two moons were chosen ahead of Saturn’s moon Titon. Titon has a thick atmosphere (at-MOSS-fear) of nitrogen and methane, similar to what the Earth was like billions of years ago. This mission may still go ahead sometime after 2030.