Simply AWESOME! JUICE spacecraft snaps selfie with Earth in background

Just a week ago, the European Space Agency's first ever Jupiter mission took off from ELA-3 in Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The mission, named Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer or JUICE, is being led by the European Space Agency (ESA). The spacecraft will study three of Jupiter's Galilean moons — Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa — in search of water and signs of life on them. The spacecraft shot into space on the Ariane 5 rocket. Interestingly, the spacecraft took 'selfies' while leaving Earth behind.

ESA released 'selfies' taken by the JUICE spacecraft shortly after liftoff, with Earth in the background. According to ESA, the images were captured just hours following the April 14 launch, with the help of body-mounted cameras, which are to be used to monitor the deployment of various instruments such as the antennas. Images were then processed and colour-adjusted before being released to the public.

Tech aboard the JUICE spacecraft

According to ESA, the JUICE spacecraft is carrying as many as 10 instruments to collect data from Jupiter. The notable among them includes Jovis, Amorum ac Natorum Undique Scrutator (JANUS), a camera system that has 13 panchromatic, broad, and narrow-band filters in the 0.36-micrometer to 1.1-micrometer range and provides stereo imaging capabilities as well as Moons.

Moreover, it also has a Jupiter Imaging Spectrometer (MAJIS) aboard, which is a visible and infrared imaging spectrograph operating from 400 nm to 5.70-micrometer, with a spectral resolution of 3–7 nm, that will observe tropospheric cloud features and minor gas constituents on Jupiter and investigate the composition of ices and minerals on the surfaces of the icy moons.

About the JUICE mission

The primary objective of the JUICE missions is to make detailed observations of Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons with a suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in-situ instruments. It will conduct 35 Jovian moon flybys.

The mission will characterize these moons as both planetary objects and possible habitats, explore Jupiter's complex environment in-depth, and study the wider Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giants across the Universe.