Spacecraft flying past Venus on its way to Jupiter with help from Irish scientists

Spacecraft flying past Venus on its way to Jupiter with help from Irish scientists

Juice images of Earth during a lunar flyby

Dr Caitriona Jackman, a planetary scientist at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS)

A spacecraft which launched in 2023 with Irish input, is doing a gravity-assisted flyby of the planet Venus tomorrow on its way to explore if the conditions for life exist on Jupiter’s moons.

Dr Caitriona Jackman, a planetary scientist at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), is head of the DIAS magnetospheres group contributing to the Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) mission of the European Space Agency (ESA).

“There’s some really exotic moons at Jupiter, and we have strong evidence from previous missions to suggest that they have icy crusts,” Dr Jackm