Juno reaches Jupiter

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“And yet it moves. What Galileo saw through his telescope, I captured on approach to Jupiter” tweeted @NASAJuno, on 4th of July 2016, as Juno Mission successfully arrived at Planet Jupiter’s orbit after travelling 1.8 billion miles over  5 years from its initiation on 5th of August, 2011.

The Mission aims to understand origin and evolution of Jupiter, look for solid planetary core, map magnetic field, measure water and ammonia in deep atmosphere, observe auroras.

Jupiter gets its name from the King of the Roman gods. The planet was known from the ancient times. It is the largest planet on the Solar system with an orbit of approximately 484 million miles from the sun which is five times as far from the Sun as the Earth is. A day on this planet is about 10 Earth hours while a year counts for about 12 Earth years. Its average diameter is approximately 88,846 miles. The surface gravity is almost 2.5 times as Earth’s. This planet is called a gas giant, for it is primarily composed of Hydrogen and a quarter of it is Helium. Jupiter has been explored on several occasions. The early being Pioneer and Voyager flyby missions and later by the Galileo orbiter. It is more than a year ago when Jupiter was visited by a probe in late February 2007, when New Horizons used Jupiter’s gravity to increase its speed and bend its trajectory en route to Pluto. Researchers think it was the first planet to form and that it holds clues to how the solar system evolved.

Juno was launched atop the Atlas V at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. After travelling in a heliocentric elliptical orbit for 2 years, it passed the Earth in October, 2013. From the day it reached Jupiter’s orbit, it will stay and orbit the planet to unravel its secrets till February, 2018. The mission has a budget of $ 1.1 billion.

Source : http://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/545047486/960x0.jpg?fit=scale
Source : http://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/545047486/960×0.jpg?fit=scale

The principal investigator of the mission is Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. He is responsible for all aspects of the mission. Co-investigators are Toby Owen of the University of Hawaii, Andrew Ingersoll of California Institute of Technology, Frances Bagenal of the University of Colarado at Boulder, and Candy Hansen of the Planetary Science Institute. Jack Connerney of the Goddard Space Flight Centre served as instrument lead. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California manages the mission. The Lockheed Martin Coorporation was responsible for the spacecraft development and construction.

The probe is facilitated with specified scientific Instruments to achieve certain objectives. It will determine the ratio of oxygen to hydrogen, effectively measuring the abundance of water in Jupiter, which will help distinguish among prevailing theories linking Jupiter’s formation to the Solar System. It is expected to obtain a better estimate of Jupiter’s core mass, which will also help distinguish among prevailing theories linking Jupiter’s formation to the Solar System. Another objective is to map Jupiter’s gravitational field precisely in order to assess the distribution of mass in Jupiter’s interior, including properties of its structure and dynamics. Then to map its magnetic field precisely to assess the origin and structure of the field and how deep in Jupiter the magnetic field is created. This experiment will also help scientists understand the fundamental physics of dynamo theory. The probe will also map the variation in atmospheric composition, temperature, structure, cloud opacity and dynamics to pressures far greater than 100 bars at all latitudes. The three-dimensional structure of Jupiter’s polar magnetosphere and its auroras will be thoroughly explored. The orbital frame-dragging, known also as Lense–Thirring precession caused by the angular momentum of Jupiter will be measured and possibly a new test of general relativity effects connected with the Jovian rotation.

The google doodle
The google doodle

This is the first mission to Jupiter that uses Solar Panels instead of Radio isotopic thermoelectric generators. There are 3 solar panels placed symmetrically around the probe. One of them has a magnetometer, which is used to map Jupiter’s magnetic field. The probe has a microwave radiometer that will collect data to determine the depth of the atmosphere. The JunoCam is a visible light camera added to facilitate education and public outreach. This will operate for only 7 orbits around the planet and will stop functioning due to the damaging radiation and magnetic field of the planet.

On board the probe is a plaque dedicated to Galileo Galilee. It depicts a portrait of him and a note on the Galilean moons written in his handwriting in January, 1610.  The spacecraft gains its name from Juno, the wife of Jupiter who could see the true nature of Jupiter through the veil of clouds he drew to hide his mischief.

References:

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/goddard/2016/nasa-scientist-presents-the-juno-mission-to-jupiter-at-the-library-of-congress
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/04/world/juno-jupiter-nasa/
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/juno/main/index.html

 
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