ESA's JUICE spacecraft flies by Venus on its way to Jupiter's icy moons

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During the wee hours of this morning (Aug. 31), a boxy spacecraft with solar wings in the shape of crosses flew right by Venus — if all went according to plan.

That probe is the European Space Agency's (ESA) JUICE ("Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer"), which is on its way to do just what you might expect after hearing its name.

The ultimate goal is indeed for JUICE to study our solar system's creamsicle-colored gas giant, but also to gather data about three of the planet's largest moons — Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. These three moons are believed to harbor oceans under their icy crusts, meaning they could be solid leads in astronomers' quest to find life beyond Earth. Europa in particular is a high-profile suspect for that agenda.

But if you're familiar with the arrangement of our solar system's planets, you may wonder why JUICE flew by Venus on its way to Jupiter — that's technically the wrong direction. The simple explanation is that JUICE can't really take a straight-line route to its destination. Rather, it's hopping around the gravitational tides of different worlds — it recently flew by the moon and then Earth again, for instance — as part of a larger, fuel-efficient effort to slingshot itself to the Jovian system.

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/missions/esas-juice-spacecraft-flies-by-venus-on-its-way-to-jupiters-icy-moons

 

Venus.