This is the kind of space science I like: a probe has arrived at Jupiter. All we know so far is that everything is working well and the machine has entered orbit. We’re all waiting for the data to come pouring in — you can follow a live stream at JPL. Pictures! I want pictures!
We haven’t even gotten all the data back from the Pluto mission and here we are, awaiting pictures and data from Jupiter.If you can’t find this wondrous and exciting, you must be a science-hating republican. What are these next few months going to reveal about the solar system’s largest planet? I’m all a-tingle.
BTW, mega-kudos to JPL and Lockheed. Simply marvelous!
*I was watching the orbital insertion on NASA TV over the internet*
The team had to shut down the instruments as the solar panels needed to be at right angle to the sun during the insertion burn. The probe was running on battery power during this time. The the probe has reoriented and the solar powers are now back facing the sun. After recharging the battery for a day or so, they will turn the instruments back on.
The project manager said the pictures will be posted on-line in raw form as they come in for the public. Since the insertion orbit is 53 days, the probe will be close-up and personal with Jupiter at the end of August.
I’m so excited. I love this stuff. I am absolutely flabbergasted at the images and data coming in from Pluto.
Nice little bit of humor to add to it… http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasas-juno-mission-to-jupiter-has-awkward-mythological-origins-in-mistresses-and-infidelity/
If there was a betting pool for ‘if we find microbes on a solar planet other than Earth, it will most likely be X’ I would put it on Jupiter.
It is a cauldron of organic chemicals at all temperatures, and 1,300 times the volume of Earth. If abiogenesis is a lottery, it has a lot of tickets.
@multitool
Too much churn in its atmosphere, I think. You’d need a stable belt of it for life to develop, and I think it regularly gets sucked up and down with the weather.
@brett #6
Did you just say that their isn’t life on Jupiter because it sucks? *ducks*
The coolest thing about Juno is its planned orbit, which is (a) polar rather than equatorial, and (b) highly elliptical, with a perijove (?) of only 4300km. That’s a seriously low jupiter orbit.
It also has 1cm thick titanium shielding around its sensitive electronics to help with the radiation issue.
re 5:
jumping into the pool: my bet is split between Titan and Europa. They have oceans of liquid water; good enough for …
The also have the probe monitoring its internal temperatures, and opening heat radiation panels when necessary to keep the electronics from overheating.
All these worlds are yours, except Europa. Attempt no landing there.
I was really excited to be at Westercon 69 this year, where Bobak “Mohawk Guy” Ferdowsi was the Science Guest of Honor. He was part of the Curiosity mission to Mars, and has since done work as a science educator. Westercon was one of a very small number of sites that carried the insertion live, and Ferdowsi narrated it live to a crowd of rapt science geeks. Definitely a treat.
I want to see those glorious ocean-sized clouds!
Brian @13, jeez that could be stunning.
Jupiter has always been beautiful and psychedelic even at a distance, seeing a tiny piece of it blown up to panoramic size might be the most exotic space photo ever taken.
Does anyone know what will be the maximum resolution these photos? I mean, will one pixel be the size of an Earth continent, or better than that?
@multitool
Well, Jupiter is “only” as wide as about 22 earths. So if it was only one pixel per Australia sized area, that would be really really bad resolution!
Ok, found it on wikipedia! When Juno is at its closest to Jupiter (4300 km), it could get as good as 15 kilometers per pixel! That’s around the size of a large city. Though usually it will not be that close.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JunoCam
One of the wikipedia links goes to something that says it could get as good as 3km/pixel:
http://planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2011/3133.html
It looks like that means each square pixel will be about 3 kilometers on each side. So a “3 km/pixel” is 9km squared per pixel.
*hmm, I think maybe it’s more like 11 earths across. The wikipedia page seems to be using “earths” to mean “the radius of earth”, not its diameter… Confusing.
So not quite close enough to detect those flying alien bases, then.
How conveeenient…
:)
You would want to calculate the area anyway. Wiki says the full surface area is roughly 121.9x Earth (6×10^10 km^2 or sixty billion), but of course only about half would be visible from Juno’s perspective at any given time. They define the “surface” of Jupiter as 1 bar of atmospheric pressure, but features in the upper atmosphere (flying alien bases, teapots, etc.) would fill up a larger angle, a fairly significant difference I think. However, I’m assuming the 4300km cited above is not supposed to be a distance from that surface (but instead from some other danger zone which is far higher than that in the atmosphere), so it’s hard to know exactly what to do with those figures.
Anyway, I’m sure the pictures will be amazing. Can’t wait.
Juno is sending back the first pictures after achieving its orbit around Jupiter.
Go Juno.