JUICE

• The European Space Agency's next big mission.
• The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or JUICE, spacecraft has been formally approved and is now slated to blast off for the gas giant planet in 2022.
• The space probe will tour three of Jupiter's largest moons: Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa—all were discovered by Galileo Galilei in the early 1600s. Previous studies have hinted that the moons could harbor liquid oceans—and maybe life-forms—below their icy surfaces.
• ESA plans to pack the solar-powered spacecraft with a suite of instruments, which will collect high-resolution pictures as well as data on the moons' chemical compositions, magnetic environments, and surface features.
• Onboard instruments will assess the moons' habitability by comparing carbon chemistry, temperature, pressure, and other factors with the conditions that work for organisms on Earth.