There are a couple of space missions headed to Jupiter (and Europa) now. One is the very recently launched Europa Clipper. The other is the Jupiter Ice Moons Explorer, aka Juice, which did a flyby of Earth back in August to get a gravity assist.
As it zipped by, a couple of the Juice instruments took a look at Earth, and determined that for at least right now, Earth is a habitable planet. I hope humanity figures out a way to keep it in that condition.
Juice confirms that Earth is habitable
"ESA Juice project scientist Olivier Witasse says: “We are obviously not surprised by these results… it would have been extremely concerning to find out that Earth was not habitable! But they indicate that MAJIS [the Moons and Jupiter Imaging Spectrometer) and SWI [the Submillimeter Wave Instrument] will work very successfully at Jupiter, where they will help us investigate whether the icy moons could be potential habitats for past or present life.”MAJIS took a look at the Pacific Ocean:
The Juice mission now heads to Venus, then will loop past Earth two more times before finally heading toward Jupiter. You have to be patient to be a mission scientist with these deep runs. Some of us might not make it that long (2031 is the slated arrival year). I hope to still be around then.
As a note, both Juice and the Europa Clipper have really large solar panels. No one has the courage to launch nuclear-powered satellites into space anymore.
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