Univ. NICE
Prof. A. Fienga
The JUICE – JUpiter ICy moons Explorer – MISSION
(S3, elective, 6 ECTS)
Learning Outcomes:The Juice mission is an ESA large mission of exploration of the main satellites of Jupiter. Its main goal is the characterization of the ocean under the surface of Ganymede, the largest Jupiter satellite. In this course, we will firstly explore the Jovian system in overviewing the main topics addressed by the mission. We will then see how the instruments proposed for this mission will brings answers to open questions related to the nature of the satellites, the formation of this tiny solar system and its evolution.
Knowledge and Understanding:
The students will perform numerical simulations based on a simplified version of the INPOP code for cod-ing different modelings of internal structures of Galilean satellites and estimating their impact on gravity field coefficients.After getting familiar with the code in C language, the students will simulate different modelings of internal structure from a two-layer model to a crust+ocean+core modele.They will estimate the impact of such models on the variations of the gravity field coefficients (C22, C20, S20,S21) by comparison to an homogeneous sphere in hydrostatic equilibrium. In a second step, they will see how the variations of the gravity field coefficients can affect the orbit of the spacecraft. Finally by comparisons with the mission specifications,they will see what models could be detected by the radio science experiments and which one would not be.
Applying Knowledge and Understanding:We will focus on open questions addressed by the JUICEmission such as what are the inter-actions in between the strong jovian magnetosphere and its satellites? Is Ganymede’s ocean salty ? what is below this ocean ? how can an ocean be formed under the satellite surface ? Why is Callisto so different from Ganymede ? We will also see how the instruments proposed for the mission would provide some answers.
Prerequisitesnone
ProgramThe Jovian system 2) Dynamics of natural satellites 3) Questions addressed by the JUICE mission
Description of how the course is conductedSee above
Description of the didactic methodsPowerpoint and connexion on data server
Description of the evaluation methodsOral exam
Adopted Textbooks
Recommended readingshttp://sci.esa.int/juice/49837-juice-assessment-study-report-yellow-book/ http://es.ucsc.edu/~fnimmo/website/Tobie_Titan.pdf