ESA's JUICE spacecraft begins mission to explore Jupiter's icy moons

The European Space Agency has launched its JUICE spacecraft to study Jupiter’s icy moons, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, to investigate whether they could be potentially habitable. The spacecraft will perform a total of 35 flybys of the three icy moons and will not look for evidence of life directly but will look for indications that the moons could potentially host life by looking for biosignatures such as the presence of biologically essential elements like carbon and oxygen. The mission is expected to arrive at the Jupiter system in 2031.