the European Juice probe to conquer Jupiter

On board the Ariane 5 rocket, the Juice probe heads for Jupiter. For the European Space Agency, it is the exploration program of the decade. Seeing the 1.5 billion euro program finally launch into space gives way to relief, then to joy. “It’s almost more impressive to experience it from the outside, to see people who have worked for years, it marks”says astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

An eight-year journey

The probe will cover, for eight years, several billion kilometers. It will gravitate around the icy moons of Jupiter: the most favorable place for life forms, according to scientists. “We won’t find life there but certainly a way to know if it can exist”, says Josef Aschbacher, director of the European Space Agency. Another successful launch for the Ariane 5. It will take another three years of observation to find out if the oceans of icy moons are conducive to life forms.