Hoping to better understand conditions where life can form and grow, scientists want to explore three of Jupiter's large icy moons which may resemble some of the planets found orbiting stars beyond our solar system.
Europa, Callisto and Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, are all believed to have liquid oceans beneath their icy shells, as well as organic chemistry and possible sources of energy beyond the dim amount of sunlight that reaches their distant surfaces. These are all conditions that may be required for life in much more distant planetary bodies.
"We thought for quite some time these were dead icy bodies, but we have recently actually discovered a fabulous collection of very geologically active things there," planetary scientist Athena Coustenis, with the Paris Observatory in France, said at the Astrobiology Science Conference in Atlanta this week.
A newly proposed mission, The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, nicknamed JUICE, would send a spacecraft to study the three moons and their habitability.
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