Juno is a ideal name for the spacecraft that will peer through Jupiter’s clouds to reveal what’s really going on.
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The arrival at Jupiter was dramatic. To avoid this danger, Juno is put into a highly elliptical orbit that avoids most of the radiation. But Juno could see through the cloud, just as the spacecraft is using its sensors to see through Jupiter’s dense gas clouds to study the planet. However, NASA also said some of its instruments will only be powered by end of the month as per schedule.
Jupiter has fascinated astronomers for a long time.
Ever since the moon landing in 1969, people have longed to reach beyond our planet’s orbit and into the far reaches of the solar system, but the lawmakers who fund NASA have had trouble agreeing on how to do it. Juno is a ideal example of a good answer.
With its billowy clouds and colorful stripes, Jupiter is an extreme world that likely formed first, shortly after the sun. Looking at outer planets such as Jupiter and Pluto – which NASA’s New Horizons flew by last summer – allows us to comprehend threats to the whole solar system, such as asteroids and comets.
Named after Jupiter’s cloud-piercing wife in Roman mythology, Juno is only the second mission created to spend time at Jupiter. In late August, the spacecraft swings back around Jupiter for its first close-in view. 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.
Previous missions to Jupiter have revealed stunning views of the planet’s thick clouds and vivid auroras. Two of Juno’s main questions are how much water is inside Jupiter and does Jupiter have a core.
All that information will yield clues about whether Jupiter formed where it is now or farther out in the solar system, then migrated to its current orbit. “We’ve got to go down and look at what’s inside, see how it’s built, how deep these features go, learn about its real secrets”.
There’s also the mystery of its Great Red Spot. The glowing blue lights in the picture above were captured by the Hubble Space Telescope with the help of Juno.
The trek to Jupiter, spanning nearly five years and 2.8 billion kilometers, took Juno on a tour of the inner solar system followed by a swing past Earth that catapulted it beyond the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. A trio of massive solar wings sticks out from Juno like blades from a windmill, generating 500 watts of power to run its nine instruments.
Juno’s science instruments had been turned off in the days leading up to Jupiter orbit insertion.
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“Independence Day always is something to celebrate, but today we can add to America’s birthday another reason to cheer-Juno is at Jupiter”, NASA administrator Charlie Bolden said in a press release. Juno was also built to withstand harsh radiation on Jupiter as powerful as 100 million dental X-rays.
