Professional Pilot, October 2016
SPACE EXPLORATION Juno spacecraft provides new close up views and more information on Jupiter As capabilities improve we learn more about our solar system member planets and beyond O n July 4 2016 the Juno spacecraft went into orbit about Jupiter This is the beginning of a 2 year mission to study the king of the planets in our solar system in new ways We are starting to get data back now including pictures of the exotic poles of Jupiter In addition to observations of the little studied poles of Jupiter Juno is equipped with instruments that will allow us to learn more about the interior of Jupiter its evolution 122 PROFESSIONAL PILOT October 2016 and implications for the formation of our solar system Before we start our Juno journey in this article lets review some facts about Jupiter and its exploration Jupiter Jupiter is by far the largest planet in our solar system It is more than 10 times wider than the Earth and about 300 times more massive In fact if you combine the mass of all the other planets asteroids and comets in our solar system the total would still be smaller than the mass of Jupiter Jupiter is basically a giant ball of gas mostly composed of hydrogen some helium and smaller amounts of other materials Its year is 12 Earth years long and it has the shortest day of any planet in the solar system with a rotation period of approximately 10 hrs Jupiter has a number of cloud bands that parallel its equator and has the famous Great Red Spot a By Bruce Betts Director of Science Technology The Planetary Society Artists concept of the Juno mission at Jupiter Each solar panel is nearly 9 meters long 295 ft One has an additional boom at the end that carries a magnetometer This infrared image gives an unprecedented view of the southern aurora of Jupiter as captured by Juno on August 27 2016 The planets southern aurora can hardly be seen from Earth due to Earths position with respect to Jupiters south pole This image shows wavelengths from 33 to 36 microns the wavelengths of light emitted by excited hydrogen ions in the polar regions Jupiter as seen in infrared light This image shows 2 types of data from the JIRAM imager The lower one red color scale is used for mapping the planets thermal emission at wavelengths around 48 microns The upper one blue color scale is used to map the auroras at wavelengths around 345 microns Image courtesy NASA JPL Caltech SwRI ASI INAF JIRAM Image courtesy NASA JPL Caltech SwRI ASI INAF JIRAM Image courtesy NASA JPL
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