Last week was my first plunge back into my normal working schedule - two days in London, three working from home. My work colleagues welcomed me back to London by taking me to see Iron Man 3. Do you think they know me? I think they know me. I missed them. ♥

So let me tell you about my favourite line in the entire film, which I'm fairly certain wasn't anyone else's. ( Spoiler )

~*~

Work on the Phase A development of the science payload for the Jupiter mission to JUICE is ramping up. You can find brief definitions of the instruments and their objectives here. The blurb for our instrument, J-MAG:

"A magnetometer to characterise the Jovian magnetic field, its interaction with the internal magnetic field of Ganymede, and to study subsurface oceans of the icy moons. The instrument will use fluxgates (inbound and outbound) sensors mounted on a boom."

~*~

And now for more photos of Baby Chewing On Things. She's teething. Thank goodness she's a good-tempered child because otherwise I think we'd probably be treated to endless screaming right now.


Image of Humuhumu in white button-down shirt and blue trackie bottoms, playing an invisible harmonica.

( +5 )

The European Space Agency has selected its first L-class mission, the JUICE mission to Jupiter and its Galilean moons.

Here's a quote from the article (from my boss):

"People probably don't realise that habitable zones don't necessarily need to be close to a star - in our case, close to the Sun," explained Prof. Michele Dougherty, a Juice science team member from Imperial College London, UK.

"There are four conditions required for life to form. You need water; you need an energy source - so the ice can become liquid; you need the right chemistry - nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen; and the fourth thing you need is stability - a length of time that allows life to form.

"The great thing about the icy moons in the Jupiter system is that we think those four conditions might exist there; and Juice will tell us if that is the case," she told BBC News.

It's scheduled to launch in 2022. Fingers crossed that I will be working on it then, too!

(x-posted to science)