The Atlantic wrote that building Juno for the trip to Jupiter was like building “an armored tank for outer space” because of the unique challenges the planet represents, including heavy doses of radiation.
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On the evening of July 4, while most of us are rendezvousing with family and friends to watch the Independence Day fireworks, NASA’s spacecraft JUpiter Near-polar Orbiter (JUNO) will be rendezvousing with Jupiter after a five-year, 1.74 billion-mile journey from Earth. The Jovian system consists of four planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The images are part of a campaign aimed at mapping Jupiter more fully before Juno arrives next week. His figurine is carrying a model of Jupiter and a telescope.
“We had expected to see oxygen, in the form of water which contains oxygen, but saw very little”, said Bolton as quoted by The Guardian, “There are two explanations for this”. Juno was launched on August 5, 2011 and is now on its route to Jupiter.
“We’ve had a number of spacecraft that have flown past Jupiter and taken pictures and taken movies, but they have always been in the equatorial plane”, says Candice Hansen from the Planetary Science Institute, a member of Juno’s science team responsible for planning the mission’s camera operations. So rather than orbiting the planet, Juno will make a series of 37 loops between Jupiter and the radiation ring.
NASA plans to investigate the planet’s suspected oddities, such as rivers of metallic hydrogen created by the planet’s intense pressure and enormous auroras, significantly larger than those on Earth. Previous missions that imaged Jupiter on approach saw the system from much lower latitudes, closer to the planet’s equator. Juno’s extremely eccentric polar orbit minimizes the time Juno spends in Jupiter’s harsh environment and has another advantage.
In preparation for the imminent arrival of NASA’s Juno spacecraft in July 2016, astronomers used ESO’s Very Large Telescope to obtain spectacular new infrared images of Jupiter using the VISIR instrument.
False color infrared images of Jupiter, generated from VLT observations in February and March 2016. Then Juno’s orbit will carry the spacecraft below its south pole and away from Jupiter, well beyond the reach of harmful radiation.
All of Juno’s instruments, including JunoCam, are scheduled to be turned back on approximately two days after achieving orbit.
“This image is the start of something great”.
“These maps will help set the scene for what Juno will witness in the coming months”, said Leigh Fletcher, the team leader for these observations, in a statement. The bluer areas are cold and cloud-free, the orange areas are warm and cloudy, more colorless bright regions are warm and cloud-free, and dark regions are cold and cloudy (such as the Great Red Spot and the prominent ovals). Scientists say the spacecraft will, in a similar way, reveal the mysteries of the planet Jupiter.
Juno is a solar-powered spacecraft as big as a basketball court.
Glenn Orton, leader of the ground-based campaign in support of Juno’s mission, elaborates on why the preparatory observations from Earth are so valuable: “The combined efforts of an global team of amateur and professional astronomers have provided us with an incredibly rich dataset over the past eight months”.
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“Juno will give us a better understanding of the atmosphere and violence of the storms and what goes on beneath the surface”, says Elizabeth Hendricks North, president and CEO of CuriosityStream.
