Artist’s concept of NASA’s Juno spacecraft making one of its close passes over Jupiter. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.
On July 4, 2016, NASA’s solar-powered Juno spacecraft will fire its main engine for 35 minutes, placing the spacecraft into orbit around the giant planet Jupiter. It’ll become the first craft to orbit Jupiter since Galileo, which arrived in 1995 and spent eight years in orbit. It’ll fly within 2,900 miles (4,667 km) of the cloud tops of our solar system’s largest planet.
Juno, an unmanned spacecraft the size of a basketball court, launched on August 5, 2011.
You can follow the Juno mission on Facebook and Twitter. It’s about to get exciting!
As @NASAJuno spacecraft approaches Jupiter, here are a few things to know about the mission: https://t.co/gO6khpuhni http://pic.twitter.com/l8MnGunDX1
— NASA (@NASA) June 29, 2016
Spot on. See the Great Red Spot through my eyes ???? by JunoCam. 4 days till #Jupiter! https://t.co/pkBUXXMBIx http://pic.twitter.com/EqRSNUcVxJ
— NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) June 30, 2016
Juno has 37 close approaches to Jupiter planned. But, according to NASA scientists, getting this close to Jupiter comes with a price – one that will be paid each time Juno’s orbit carries it close to the planet’s cloud cover. Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator, said in a statement:
We are not looking for trouble. We are looking for data. Problem is, at Jupiter, looking for the kind of data Juno is looking for, you have to go in the kind of neighborhoods where you could find trouble pretty quick.
The source of the potential trouble is found inside Jupiter itself. According to the NASA statement:
Well below the planet’s cloud tops is a layer of hydrogen that is under such incredible pressure that it acts as an electrical conductor. Scientists believe that the combination of this metallic hydrogen along with Jupiter’s fast rotation – one day on Jupiter is only 10 hours long – generates a powerful magnetic field that surrounds the planet with electrons, protons and ions traveling at nearly the speed of light.
The endgame for any spacecraft that enters this doughnut-shaped field of high-energy particles is an encounter with the harshest radiation environment in the solar system.
Rick Nybakken is Juno’s project manager from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Nybakken said:
Over the life of the mission, Juno will be exposed to the equivalent of over 100 million dental X-rays. But, we are ready. We designed an orbit around Jupiter that minimizes exposure to Jupiter’s harsh radiation environment. This orbit allows us to survive long enough to obtain the tantalizing science data that we have traveled so far to get.
Juno’s orbit resembles a flattened oval. The spacecraft approaches Jupiter over its north pole and quickly drops to an altitude below the planet’s radiation belts as it moves toward Jupiter’s south pole. Each close flyby of the planet takes about the length of one Earth day.
@OddSigma The radiation is mostly confined to the equator. So the polar orbit helps avoid most of the radiation belt. #askNASA
— NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) June 16, 2016
Then Juno’s orbit will carry the spacecraft below the south pole and away from Jupiter, beyond the reach of harmful radiation.
Juno has special radiation-hardened electrical wiring and shielding surrounding its sensors, including a titanium vault that holds the flight computer and the electronic hearts of many of its science instruments. The vault will reduce Juno’s exposure to radiation by 800 times of that outside its walls. Without it, scientists say, Juno’s electronic brain would probably fry before the end of the very first flyby. But the vault’s 400 pounds of titanium can’t protect Juno forever in an extreme radiation environment like that on Jupiter. The quantity and energy of the high-energy particles is just too much.
Heidi Becker of JPL is Juno’s Radiation Monitoring Investigation lead. She said:
Over the course of the mission, the highest-energy electrons will penetrate the vault, creating a spray of secondary photons and particles. The constant bombardment will break the atomic bonds in Juno’s electronics.
Juno’s special orbit, however, allows the radiation dose and the degradation to accumulate slowly, hopefully allowing Juno to accomplish 20 months-worth of science.
During Juno’s flybys, the spacecraft will probe beneath the gas giant’s cloud cover and study its auroras. The Juno mission’s aim is to learn more about Jupiter’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
@BP_Hutch It is approximately a two year mission, and will purposefully end in 2018. #askNASA
— NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) June 16, 2016
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Bottom line: On July 4, 2016, NASA’s solar-powered Juno spacecraft will enter orbit around Jupiter and fly within 2,900 miles (4,667 km) of the cloud tops of our solar system’s largest planet.
from EarthSky http://ift.tt/28KnYbg
Artist’s concept of NASA’s Juno spacecraft making one of its close passes over Jupiter. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.
On July 4, 2016, NASA’s solar-powered Juno spacecraft will fire its main engine for 35 minutes, placing the spacecraft into orbit around the giant planet Jupiter. It’ll become the first craft to orbit Jupiter since Galileo, which arrived in 1995 and spent eight years in orbit. It’ll fly within 2,900 miles (4,667 km) of the cloud tops of our solar system’s largest planet.
Juno, an unmanned spacecraft the size of a basketball court, launched on August 5, 2011.
You can follow the Juno mission on Facebook and Twitter. It’s about to get exciting!
As @NASAJuno spacecraft approaches Jupiter, here are a few things to know about the mission: https://t.co/gO6khpuhni http://pic.twitter.com/l8MnGunDX1
— NASA (@NASA) June 29, 2016
Spot on. See the Great Red Spot through my eyes ???? by JunoCam. 4 days till #Jupiter! https://t.co/pkBUXXMBIx http://pic.twitter.com/EqRSNUcVxJ
— NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) June 30, 2016
Juno has 37 close approaches to Jupiter planned. But, according to NASA scientists, getting this close to Jupiter comes with a price – one that will be paid each time Juno’s orbit carries it close to the planet’s cloud cover. Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator, said in a statement:
We are not looking for trouble. We are looking for data. Problem is, at Jupiter, looking for the kind of data Juno is looking for, you have to go in the kind of neighborhoods where you could find trouble pretty quick.
The source of the potential trouble is found inside Jupiter itself. According to the NASA statement:
Well below the planet’s cloud tops is a layer of hydrogen that is under such incredible pressure that it acts as an electrical conductor. Scientists believe that the combination of this metallic hydrogen along with Jupiter’s fast rotation – one day on Jupiter is only 10 hours long – generates a powerful magnetic field that surrounds the planet with electrons, protons and ions traveling at nearly the speed of light.
The endgame for any spacecraft that enters this doughnut-shaped field of high-energy particles is an encounter with the harshest radiation environment in the solar system.
Rick Nybakken is Juno’s project manager from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Nybakken said:
Over the life of the mission, Juno will be exposed to the equivalent of over 100 million dental X-rays. But, we are ready. We designed an orbit around Jupiter that minimizes exposure to Jupiter’s harsh radiation environment. This orbit allows us to survive long enough to obtain the tantalizing science data that we have traveled so far to get.
Juno’s orbit resembles a flattened oval. The spacecraft approaches Jupiter over its north pole and quickly drops to an altitude below the planet’s radiation belts as it moves toward Jupiter’s south pole. Each close flyby of the planet takes about the length of one Earth day.
@OddSigma The radiation is mostly confined to the equator. So the polar orbit helps avoid most of the radiation belt. #askNASA
— NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) June 16, 2016
Then Juno’s orbit will carry the spacecraft below the south pole and away from Jupiter, beyond the reach of harmful radiation.
Juno has special radiation-hardened electrical wiring and shielding surrounding its sensors, including a titanium vault that holds the flight computer and the electronic hearts of many of its science instruments. The vault will reduce Juno’s exposure to radiation by 800 times of that outside its walls. Without it, scientists say, Juno’s electronic brain would probably fry before the end of the very first flyby. But the vault’s 400 pounds of titanium can’t protect Juno forever in an extreme radiation environment like that on Jupiter. The quantity and energy of the high-energy particles is just too much.
Heidi Becker of JPL is Juno’s Radiation Monitoring Investigation lead. She said:
Over the course of the mission, the highest-energy electrons will penetrate the vault, creating a spray of secondary photons and particles. The constant bombardment will break the atomic bonds in Juno’s electronics.
Juno’s special orbit, however, allows the radiation dose and the degradation to accumulate slowly, hopefully allowing Juno to accomplish 20 months-worth of science.
During Juno’s flybys, the spacecraft will probe beneath the gas giant’s cloud cover and study its auroras. The Juno mission’s aim is to learn more about Jupiter’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.
@BP_Hutch It is approximately a two year mission, and will purposefully end in 2018. #askNASA
— NASA's Juno Mission (@NASAJuno) June 16, 2016
Enjoying EarthSky? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!
Bottom line: On July 4, 2016, NASA’s solar-powered Juno spacecraft will enter orbit around Jupiter and fly within 2,900 miles (4,667 km) of the cloud tops of our solar system’s largest planet.
from EarthSky http://ift.tt/28KnYbg
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