Jupiter’s Io Network: Status and Outlook of Juno and Europa Clipper, the Next Dedicated Flybys of Jupiters’ Moons

The Juno spacecraft has been orbiting Jupiter since 2016 to uncover details more about the giant planet and is focused on performing flybys of Jupiter’s moons during the extended part of its mission, which began last year and is expected to last through the end of 2025.

“They’re stunning, actually,” said Candice J. Hansen-Koharcheck, a scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., who is responsible for the operation of the spacecraft’s primary camera, JunoCam.

The Io network of volcanoes and how its eruptions interact with Jupiter will be explored by scientists using Juno’s observations. The moon is pulled by Jupiter on a daily basis.

The new image of Jupiter was taken on September 29th. The atmosphere of Jupiter is full of hundreds of hurricanes and clusters at the planet’s poles.

The ocean is between 64 to 161 kilometers deep and contains between 10 and 16 miles of ice with a thickness between 17 and 24 kilometers.

The first will launch in April of 2023 and spend 3 years on Jupiter, and three of its icy moons. All of the moons are believed to have oceans beneath their ice covered crusts, and scientists want to see if the ocean on Ganymede is viable.

Europa Clipper will launch in 2024 to perform a dedicated series of 50 flybys around the moon after arriving in 2030. Eventually transitioning from an altitude of 1,700 miles (2,736 kilometers) to just 16 miles (26 kilometers) above the moon’s surface, Europa Clipper may be able to help scientists determine whether an interior ocean truly exists there and if the moon could support life.