7 Days Out From Orbital Insertion, NASA’s Juno Images Jupiter and its Largest Moons

Univese Today ^ | 06/27/2016 | Ken Kremer

[BenLurkin]

...July 4, Juno must fire its main engine for 35 minutes.

... will place NASA’s robotic explorer into a polar orbit around the gas giant.

The approach over the north pole is unlike earlier probes that approached from much lower latitudes nearer the equatorial zone, and thus provide a perspective unlike any other.

...

... Juno will fly within 2,900 miles (4,667 kilometers) of the Jovian cloud tops.

All instruments except those critical for the JOI insertion burn on July 4, will be tuned off on June 29. That includes shutting down Junocam.

“If it doesn’t help us get into orbit, it is shut down,” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

“That is how critical this rocket burn is. And while we will not be getting images as we make our final approach to the planet, we have some interesting pictures of what Jupiter and its moons look like from five-plus million miles away.”

During a 20 month long science mission – entailing 37 orbits lasting 11 days each – the probe will plunge to within about 3000 miles of the turbulent cloud tops and collect unprecedented new data that will unveil the hidden inner secrets of Jupiter’s origin and evolution.

“Jupiter is the Rosetta Stone of our solar system,” says Bolton. “It is by far the oldest planet, contains more material than all the other planets, asteroids and comets combined and carries deep inside it the story of not only the solar system but of us. Juno is going there as our emissary — to interpret what Jupiter has to say.”

During the orbits, Juno will probe beneath the obscuring cloud cover of Jupiter and study its auroras to learn more about the planet’s origins, structure, atmosphere and magnetosphere.

[BenLurkin]

This annotated color view of Jupiter and its four largest moons -- Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto -- was taken by the JunoCam camera on NASA's Juno spacecraft on June 21, 2016, at a distance of 6.8 million miles (10.9 million kilometers) from Jupiter. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

[Talisker]

“Jupiter is the Rosetta Stone of our solar system,” says Bolton. “It is by far the oldest planet...

[Delta 21]

Arent you still advising on matters of orbital insertion?

[Delta 21]

Scientists think that the Earth is 4.54 billion years old. Coincidentally, this is the same age as the rest of the planets in the Solar System, as well as the Sun. Of course, it’s not a coincidence; the Sun and the planets all formed together from a diffuse cloud of hydrogen billions of years ago.

Pesky details.

[faithhopecharity]

can the next one carry Obama?

[radu]

Cool! I didn’t know about this one.

Looking forward to keeping up with it and seeing the images it sends back.

[blueplum]

guess who’s on board?! Lego people!

http://www.pe.com/articles/lego-806585-jupiter-juno.html

[samtheman]

Signals traveling at the speed of light take 10 minutes to reach Earth.

---

If Juno can send signals to earth in 10 minutes, those signals are going at least 3.5 times the speed of light.

I guess Universe Today is getting its astronomy from the writers of Star Wars, where a parsec is a unit of time.

[Maverick68]

Ya know, if we’d stop paying people to breed we might be close to REAL interplanetary travel by now.