Juno craft fires engine ahead of Jupiter arrival

In particular, the goal is to understand the “dynamo” mechanism that generates Jupiter’s magnetic field, that must share many properties with our own. “Some of those details will tell us about the interior of Jupiter”.

Despite having pointed telescopes at Jupiter for more than 400 years, mankind has much more to learn about the planet that would eclipse 11 Earths lined up in a row.

However, on its approach to the giant gas-planet and before it powered-down on board systems for orbiting manoeuvres, Juno captured the planet interacting with its four moons – something that had never been seen before.

But after its close encounter with the gas giant Monday night, Juno is already too far away to make precise measurements: As of Tuesday afternoon, it was 700,000 miles from Jupiter and speeding away at 30,000 mph. A second rocket burn in October will then decelerate it further to place it into a much tighter 14-day orbit to use eight remote sensing instruments to gather scientific data.

An onboard color camera called JunoCam will take “spectacular close-up, color images” of Jupiter, according to NASA.

Juno’s data will also provide insights into the meteorology of Jupiter’s colorful bands of clouds and will help explain how the Great Red Spot has persisted for centuries – and perhaps why it is now shrinking. “Others are related to its interior dynamics – for example, how much material is moved around in Jupiter’s interior through convection, as opposed to if it were a quiescent planet”.

Like the Galileo mission before it, the Juno probe will end its life by plunging into Jupiter. It will circle the Jovian world 37 times during 20 months, skimming to within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) above the cloud tops, providing new answers to ongoing mysteries about the planet’s core, composition and magnetic fields. It’s created to slow the Juno spacecraft down so that it can slip into orbit around the giant planet. It is probably the largest hurricane in the solar system, so big that it can easily swallow up Earth, but little is known about where it came from or its energy source.

This brief lull gives scientists and engineers time to catch their breath after Juno’s suspenseful but flawless arrival and before work begins to peer deep inside Jupiter. The UVS will look at the spectrum of light being emitted, something Weidner said is similar to what we see on Earth. The other two represent the Roman god Jupiter and his wife Juno.

Scientists say Jupiter is mostly composed of hydrogen and helium, like the sun, and that levels of oxygen and atmospheric water may give clues to the planet’s formation.

The Juno mission should also reveal more details of the planet itself than its predecessor, the Galileo mission (which arrived at Jupiter in 1995).

Hubbard can’t wait for the probe to begin streaming data to Earth that he has awaited for years. Earlier probes made fly-bys on their way to the outer reaches of the solar system.

Jupiter also is one of the most radioactive planets in the solar system, Napier said.

Jim Green, director, Planetary Science Division, NASA, left, talks during a media briefing joined by Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator, second from left, Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager, second from right, and Heidi Becker, Juno radiation monitoring investigation Lead, at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., on Monday, July 4, 2016. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate.