![]() If you want to take your observations to the next level, be sure to time the beginning and end of the transit precisely, and send this data along with your observing location to the Paris Observatory With your help, astronomers will be able to calibrate their own observations and help ESA make more of the JUICE mission!įollow Tom Kerss on Twitter Follow us on Twitter and on Facebook. As Europa slips away again, the star will reappear in your telescope. It is only during the occultation that you are really seeing all four moons (one in silhouette) as the star disappears leaving only three points of light flanking Jupiter. Chaos reigns in detailed new views of Jupiter's icy moon EuropaĮuropa is predicted to pass in front of that star at precisely 03:05:57 UTC, but local times will vary by longitude, so make sure you're at the telescope earlier to be safe. Water plumes on Europa: The discovery in images NASA spacecraft snaps gorgeous new photo of Jupiter's moons Io and Europa Further to the east, the encroaching sunrise will make the sky too bright to see the occultation. The occultation will trace a path across southern Africa, with the center line passing through Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. If you happen to be in the right place, you could observe this event yourself with just a modest telescope. "For example, knowing the spacecraft's exact altitude above a moon's surface will make calculations about the moon's interior more precise." "It will help spacecraft operators navigate between these icy worlds more accurately, and it will help the scientists extract conclusions from the flyby data," ESA officials wrote in the statement. To get the best results, Europa's orbit must be tightly constrained, and that's why observing this occultation is so important to ESA. Some scientists believe Europa could be habitable, but to understand whether or not that's the case, they need to peer beneath its icy surface. In tandem with NASA's Europa Clipper mission, JUICE will reveal one of the solar system's most compelling worlds in astonishing detail. Nichols (University of Leicester) Ganymede: NASA/JPL Io: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona Callisto and Europa: NASA/JPL/DLR)ĮSA plans to launch the Jupiter Icy moons Explorer, or JUICE mission, next year, beginning a long voyage to Jupiter where the spacecraft will perform extensive study of both Europa and its larger sibling moon, Ganymede. (Image credit: spacecraft: ESA/ATG medialab Jupiter: NASA/ESA/J. It will study Europa and Ganymede in unprecedented detail. By precisely timing the passage of this shadow, astronomers at ESA will be able to learn more about Europa's orbit.ĮSA's JUICE mission will launch in 2023 and finally enter orbit around Ganymede in 2034. For a brief moment, observers on the ground will be able to stand in the shadow of Europa, as cast by the faint light of a star many light-years away. Immersed within the shadow of Jupiter itself, the pitch-black disk of Europa will eclipse the star like the new moon passing in front of the sun, making the distant star appear to switch off and then on again shortly afterwards. "As Jupiter will be blocking that sunlight during the occultation, observers will only know Europa is there when it makes the star temporarily disappear." "What makes the upcoming occultation of Europa special is that this moon will be in Jupiter's shadow at the time," agency officials wrote in a statement. This event will be even more remarkable than the last - particularly to astronomers at the Paris Observatory, who are helping scientists at ESA prepare a mission to study Europa and neighboring moons. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute)Īnd scientists now say that just such an occultation will occur on June 19 (June 18 in the United States, where the event won't be visible), as Europa is once again poised to occult a star as predicted using Gaia data. Its potential as an extraterrestrial habitat has motivated both NASA and ESA to dispatch new missions to Jupiter. The icy Europa is a fascinating moon that almost certainly harbors an ocean beneath its frozen surface.
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