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Insights from Jupiter’s Icy Moons: The Europlanet JUICE Webinar Series - JUICE
Insights from Jupiter’s Icy Moons: The Europlanet JUICE Webinar Series
The Europlanet Society has curated a series of webinars focusing on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission. These one hour sessions provide in-depth insights into various aspects of the mission, from its current status to the scientific phenomena it aims to investigate. Below is an overview of each currrently published webinar in the series.
1. Juice - mission update after one year in space
Speaker: Olivier Witasse & Claire Vallat (ESA)
On April 14, 2023, JUICE was launched from Kourou aboard the Ariane 5 rocket. Over the next eight years, it will journey through space before reaching its final destination: the Jupiter system and its icy moons. Now, one year after launch, it’s the perfect time to reflect on what has been accomplished so far with the JUICE team and to look ahead to the mission’s future. While the cruise phase from Earth to Jupiter might seem uneventful, we will demonstrate that it is anything but!
2. Induced magnetic fields - peeking below the surface Earth & Jovian moons
Speaker: Jakub Velímský (Charles University, Czech Republic) & Adam Masters (Imperial College, UK)
In this session, Jakub Velímský and Adam Masters will give brief talks on the motion-induced magnetic fields of Earth’s oceans and how JUICE could help detect potential extraterrestrial ocean habitats.
3. Lunar Earth Flyby: Perspectives from Navigation, Science & Radiation
Speaker: Angela Dietz & Claire Vallat & Marco Pinto (ESA)
Angela Dietz, spacecraft operations engineer, discusses the Lunar-Earth Gravity Assist (LEGA) from a navigational and operational perspective. Claire Vallat, science operations scientist for the JUICE mission, explores LEGA from the viewpoint of the mission’s scientific instruments. Meanwhile, Marco Pinto, research fellow in the Radiation Hardness Assurance and Component Analysis section, delves into the challenges posed by radiation, its potential to hinder space exploration, and how JUICE monitors it.
4. Juice & Smile: Unravelling magnetospheric processes on Ganymede & Earth
Speaker: Pippa Molyneux (South West Research Institute, USA) & Colin Forsyth (UCL, UK)
Pippa Molyneux, planetary scientist, discusses Ganymede’s auroras and what they reveal about the moon’s interaction with the magnetosphere, particularly through future observations with JUICE. Colin Forsyth, European Co-Investigator of the ESA-CAS SMILE mission, explains how SMILE (Solar wind Magnetosphere-Ionosphere Link Explorer) will provide new insights into Earth’s magnetosphere using innovative observation techniques.
5. Studying Jupiter with Juice-MAJIS & ground based pro-am instrumentation
Speaker: Davide Grassi (INAF, Italy) & Patrick Irwin (University of Oxford, UK) & Steven Hill (USA)
Davide Grassi, planetary scientist and Co-Investigator of the Moon and Jupiter Imaging Spectrometer (MAJIS) in Italy, discusses what to expect from Jupiter observations with MAJIS and how these observations are being planned. Patrick Irwin, planetary scientist and MAJIS Co-Investigator, presents his latest findings based on observations from the VLT/MUSE instrument, demonstrating how ammonia and cloud level maps can be derived. His work closely ties into the results presented by independent scientist Steven Hill, who uses commercial-grade equipment to observe Jupiter and analyze its ammonia and cloud distribution.
6. Couplings in the jovian system - what we expect to find with Juice
Speaker: Olivier Witasse (ESA) & Michel Blanc (CNRS-University Toulouse III - CNES, France)
Oliver Witasse, Juice project scientist gives an update about the status of the mission. Michel Blanc, planetary scientist, talks about the many different couplings that are present in the jovian system and what Juice is likely to bring to the table in terms of observations that will help analyse these coupling more in depth.
These webinars are invaluable for researchers, students, and enthusiasts interested in planetary science and space exploration. They offer a comprehensive look into the JUICE mission’s objectives, challenges, and the scientific phenomena it seeks to uncover. To access the full series, visit the official Europlanet JUICE Webinars playlist.
By Emma Vellard
Edited on the 1st of May 2025