The JunoCam is created to take the best images of the giant planet that have ever been captured.
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Juno was launched into space from Cape Canaveral, Florida on 5 August 2011.
CAPE CANAVERAL – Nasa’s Juno spacecraft capped a five-year journey to Jupiter on Monday with a do-or-die engine burn that looped it into orbit to probe the origins of the biggest planet in the solar system and how it affected the rise of life on Earth, the United States space agency said.
After a almost five-year journey, a solar-powered spacecraft is passing Jupiter’s inner moons as it readies for the closest encounter with the biggest planet in the solar system.
At 23:20 EDT (03:30 GMT Tuesday), Juno fired its main engine to reduce its speed, for a 35-minute orbital insertion maneuver.
It’s not just a sightseeing mission for Juno.
Ensnared by Jupiter’s gravity, Juno accelerated quickly to its rendezvous with Jupiter, passing within the orbit of Callisto and Ganymede, two of the main moons, on Sunday.
Although Juno is not the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, Nasa says its path will bring it closer than its predecessor, Galileo, which launched in 1989.
A NASA spacecraft is zooming toward Jupiter for the closest encounter with the biggest planet in our solar system.
“The spacecraft worked perfectly, which is always nice when you’re driving a vehicle with 1.7 billion miles on the odometer”, said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager from JPL.
Juno’s mission is remarkable despite not actually being the first probe sent hurtling into the planet.
This “burn”, or orbit insertion, began at 11:18 pm (0318 GMT) on July 4, the United States national independence day holiday.
“Juno, welcome to Jupiter”, said mission control commentator Jennifer Delavan of Lockheed Martin, which built Juno.
Few hours before the Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit, NASA released a new video and image of the spacecraft approaching the giant planet.
It will be some days before Juno begins beaming data and images back to Earth, as the spacecraft’s camera and other instruments were switched off for arrival. After finding out all the details that it can about the planet, Juno will end its mission by crashing into Jupiter on February 20, 2018.
The mission also will let us take a giant step forward in our understanding of how giant planets form and the role these titans played in putting together the rest of the solar system.
As you may know, the probe contains three aluminium LEGO mini-figures, representing the Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno and the astronomer, Galileo. It uncovered signs of an ocean beneath the icy surface of the moon Europa, considered a top target in the search for life outside Earth.
Nasa hopes to discover whether the gas giant has a solid core, whether the planet has water and what creates the lights visible at the planet’s north and south poles. “We think the material we’re going to be sampling… is essentially primordial, so that tells us something about the beginning of the solar system”, explained Richard Thorne of the University of California, Los Angeles, one of the scientists working on the mission.
“In all of history we’ve never really been able to see the motion of any heavenly body against another”, said Bolton, after showing the video during a post-orbit press conference for the first time.
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There’s also the mystery of its Great Red Spot.
