Even the Moon, for the first time, will serve to accelerate the large satellite with the slingshot effect with which the planets can accelerate it thanks to the path taken in their gravitational field. A bit like the slingshot of the biblical David, swung over his head and then opened to release the stone it contained.
To study Jupiter and its three large satellites Juice has an incredible battery of tools: A package of various remote sensing instruments with sophisticated imaging capabilities in various wavelengths, a package of instruments for the geophysical study of Jupiter’s satellites, study the surfaces and what is under the crust. There is no lack of instruments to study the space environment between the planet and its satellites, such as the flow of particles, magnetic and electric fields. Ganymede, the largest and most massive moon of the Jovian system, but also of the entire solar system, with its diameter of over 5000 kilometers, will be studied in particular, to understand how big and deep is the ocean of water under the surface.
In short, an ambitious mission, studied for a long time, which will have to operate in extreme conditions, just think of the 250 degrees it will find when passing through Venus and -230 near Jupiter in a final environment with a high radiation density. Precisely for this reason, the contribution of other Italian realities, both scientific, such as the University and Inaf, the National Institute of Astrophysics, which have worked closely with industry, should be valued. The best example is probably the Rime instrument on board the satellite, a radar system developed by Thales Alenia Space with the University of Trento, capable of going up to 9 kilometers below the icy surface of Ganymede.
By discovering the four Medici satellites of Jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Galileo Galilei revolutionized our vision of the Universe, and of our place in it. It was in fact that discovery that made him understand definitively that as they revolve around the great planet so we revolve around the Sun, and we are not the center of the universe.
Indeed, in truth, today we know that there are eight billion of us on a cosmic grain of sand lost among billions of stars and galaxies. Certainly and in any case Juice, with his results, will renew in us the wonder of knowledge.