Philosophy
This is what NASA does best.
A NASA satellite was hoisted aboard an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Wednesday in preparation for launch next week on an unprecedented mission to the heart of Jupiter.
The robotic probe called Juno is scheduled to spend one year cycling inside Jupiter's deadly radiation belts, far closer than any previous orbiting spacecraft, to learn how much water the giant planet holds, what triggers its vast magnetic fields and whether a solid core lies beneath its dense, hot atmosphere.
"Jupiter holds a lot of key secrets about how we formed," said lead scientist Scott Bolton, with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
Scientists believe Jupiter was the first planet to form after the birth of the sun, though exactly how that happened is unknown. One key piece of missing data is how much water is inside the giant planet, which circles the sun five times farther away than Earth.
Jupiter, like the sun, is comprised primarily of hydrogen and helium, with a sprinkling of other elements, like oxygen. Scientists believe the oxygen is bound with hydrogen to form water, which can be measured by microwave sounders, one of eight science instruments on Juno.
Jupiter's water content is directly tied to where -- and how -- the planet formed. Some evidence points to a planet that grew in the colder nether-regions of the solar system and then migrated inward. Other computer models show Jupiter formed at about its present location by accumulating ancient icy snowballs.
LARGER THAN SISTER PLANETS
However it grew, Jupiter ended up with a mass more than twice all its sister planets combined, giving it the gravitational muscle to hang on to nearly all of its original building materials.
"That's why it's very interesting to us if we want to go back in time and understand where we came from and how the planets were made" -- which Juno can help NASA do, Bolton said.
Juno's journey to Jupiter will take five years. Upon arrival in July 2016, Juno will thread itself into a narrow region between the planet and the inner edge of its radiation belt. The solar-powered probe will then spend a year orbiting over Jupiter's poles, coming as close as 3,100 miles above its cloud tops.
Only an atmospheric probe released by Galileo, NASA's last Jupiter spacecraft, has come closer, though that spacecraft was able to relay data for only 58 minutes before succumbing to the planet's crushing pressure and intense heat.
Juno's electronic heart is protected in a vault of titanium, but it too will fall to the harsh Jovian radiation environment after about a year. Juno's last move will be to dive into the planet's atmosphere to avoid any chance of contaminating Jupiter's potentially life-bearing moons.
Juno's launch is scheduled for August 5. The spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics of Denver, Colorado. The mission, the second in NASA's lower-cost, quick-turnaround New Frontiers planetary expeditions, will cost $1.1 billion.
(This story has been corrected in paragraph 10 to say “minutes,” not “seconds”)
- Roughly 865 Million Dollars...not Bad For Voyager 1 And 2...good Investment
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NASA's Juno spacecraft, set to arrive at Jupiter in 2016, carries three APL-built Jupiter Energetic-particle Detector Instrument (JEDI) units. Each unit weighs 15.5 pounds and uses 7 watts of power. For scale, the box that contains electronics and...
- Atlas V Rocket Launched Juno Into Space And On Its Way To Jupiter
"Juno probe heads for Jupiter from Cape Canaveral" August 5th, 2011 BBC NEWS A $1.1bn (£0.7bn) unmanned space mission has launched from Florida on a journey to the planet Jupiter. The Juno spacecraft will cruise beyond Mars to put itself in orbit...
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"June 13, 1983: Pioneer 10 Reaches an End … and a Beginning" by Tony Long June 13th, 2011 Wired 1983: Pioneer 10 becomes the first human-made object to pass outside Pluto’s orbit and leave the central solar system. Pioneer 10 must be considered...
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Philosophy
Juno ready to launch...off to Jupiter
This is what NASA does best.
"NASA probe poised for launch to Jupiter"
by
Irene Klotz
July 28th 2011
Reuters
by
Irene Klotz
July 28th 2011
Reuters
A NASA satellite was hoisted aboard an unmanned Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Wednesday in preparation for launch next week on an unprecedented mission to the heart of Jupiter.
The robotic probe called Juno is scheduled to spend one year cycling inside Jupiter's deadly radiation belts, far closer than any previous orbiting spacecraft, to learn how much water the giant planet holds, what triggers its vast magnetic fields and whether a solid core lies beneath its dense, hot atmosphere.
"Jupiter holds a lot of key secrets about how we formed," said lead scientist Scott Bolton, with the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.
Scientists believe Jupiter was the first planet to form after the birth of the sun, though exactly how that happened is unknown. One key piece of missing data is how much water is inside the giant planet, which circles the sun five times farther away than Earth.
Jupiter, like the sun, is comprised primarily of hydrogen and helium, with a sprinkling of other elements, like oxygen. Scientists believe the oxygen is bound with hydrogen to form water, which can be measured by microwave sounders, one of eight science instruments on Juno.
Jupiter's water content is directly tied to where -- and how -- the planet formed. Some evidence points to a planet that grew in the colder nether-regions of the solar system and then migrated inward. Other computer models show Jupiter formed at about its present location by accumulating ancient icy snowballs.
LARGER THAN SISTER PLANETS
However it grew, Jupiter ended up with a mass more than twice all its sister planets combined, giving it the gravitational muscle to hang on to nearly all of its original building materials.
"That's why it's very interesting to us if we want to go back in time and understand where we came from and how the planets were made" -- which Juno can help NASA do, Bolton said.
Juno's journey to Jupiter will take five years. Upon arrival in July 2016, Juno will thread itself into a narrow region between the planet and the inner edge of its radiation belt. The solar-powered probe will then spend a year orbiting over Jupiter's poles, coming as close as 3,100 miles above its cloud tops.
Only an atmospheric probe released by Galileo, NASA's last Jupiter spacecraft, has come closer, though that spacecraft was able to relay data for only 58 minutes before succumbing to the planet's crushing pressure and intense heat.
Juno's electronic heart is protected in a vault of titanium, but it too will fall to the harsh Jovian radiation environment after about a year. Juno's last move will be to dive into the planet's atmosphere to avoid any chance of contaminating Jupiter's potentially life-bearing moons.
Juno's launch is scheduled for August 5. The spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin Astronautics of Denver, Colorado. The mission, the second in NASA's lower-cost, quick-turnaround New Frontiers planetary expeditions, will cost $1.1 billion.
(This story has been corrected in paragraph 10 to say “minutes,” not “seconds”)
- Roughly 865 Million Dollars...not Bad For Voyager 1 And 2...good Investment
"Voyager 1 set to burst solar system bubble, move to parts unknown" by Amy Hubbard September 4th, 2012 The Los Angeles Times How long does it take to fly to the edge of the solar system? At least 35 years. Voyager 1 is there now, carrying...
- Jedi Onboard Juno Probe
NASA's Juno spacecraft, set to arrive at Jupiter in 2016, carries three APL-built Jupiter Energetic-particle Detector Instrument (JEDI) units. Each unit weighs 15.5 pounds and uses 7 watts of power. For scale, the box that contains electronics and...
- Atlas V Rocket Launched Juno Into Space And On Its Way To Jupiter
"Juno probe heads for Jupiter from Cape Canaveral" August 5th, 2011 BBC NEWS A $1.1bn (£0.7bn) unmanned space mission has launched from Florida on a journey to the planet Jupiter. The Juno spacecraft will cruise beyond Mars to put itself in orbit...
- Pioneer 10...still There
"June 13, 1983: Pioneer 10 Reaches an End … and a Beginning" by Tony Long June 13th, 2011 Wired 1983: Pioneer 10 becomes the first human-made object to pass outside Pluto’s orbit and leave the central solar system. Pioneer 10 must be considered...
- Venus...an Active Body
Venus is not always in the limelight much being over shadowed by Mars, Saturn, Jupiter even Mercury and soon to be Pluto but Venus is offering many surprises. NASA... For the first time, scientists have detected clear signs of recent lava flows on the...