The European Space Agency
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.
7. Europa Clipper and Juice: Potential for Scientific Synergies
Speaker: Robert Pappalardo (JPL), Claire Vallat (ESA), Emma Bunce (Space Park Leicester) and Mathieu Choukroun (JPL)
The Europa Clipper and JUICE missions, en route to Jupiter, are teaming up to provide mission updates to the science community, with discussion of the potential for unprecedented scientific synergies in the Jovian system.
8. Radar Sounding of the Earth’s Polar Regions and the Jovian Icy Moons
Speaker: Olivier Witasse (ESA), Lorenzo Bruzzone (University of Trento)
Radar sounders can penetrate ice to depths of several kilometers and play a crucial role in studying the subsurface of the Earth and other planetary bodies. Extensive experience has been gained from air- and spaceborne radar sounders dedicated to Earth observation. The ESA Juice mission is carrying the Radar for Icy Moons Exploration (RIME) instrument. This presentation will outline the current status of radar sounding for Earth observation and its connection to RIME’s science, highlighting the key scientific objectives, technical challenges, and expected scientific returns of the exploration of the Jupiter icy moons.
9. 3I / ATLAS observations by Juice
Speaker: Claire Vallat (ESA), Elena Mazzotta Epifani (INAF, Rome Observatory) and Tobias Hoffmann (ESA / ESOC)
3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system, was discovered in early July 2025. The object already exhibited clear cometary activity, making its perihelion on 29 October 2025—at ~1.38 AU from the Sun—a prime opportunity to study this interstellar visitor and its activity. However, observations from the ground at that time were difficult because of its trajectory and low solar elongation. Fortunately, JUICE was ideally positioned and equipped to observe the object in November, making it the closest spacecraft to 3I/ATLAS during this period. Thanks to the flexibility and dedication of the JUICE instrument and operations teams, an observation campaign was rapidly organised, lasting over three weeks and involving several payload instruments in addition to the navigation camera (NAVCAM). The JUICE scientific camera JANUS, together with NAVCAM, provided invaluable data on this interstellar visitor, some of which will be presented during this webinar. In a joint effort of ESA's Flight Dynamics team and Planetary Defence Office, we calculated the position of the interstellar object in deep space and enable pointing for scientific observations. With the obtained NAVCAM images we extracted the actual position offsets from close-by, which significantly helps improving the orbital dynamics estimation of the comet and its outgassing characteristics.
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.
Edited on the 17 January 2026