NASA's Juno Mission Halfway to Jupiter Science
Upcoming 16th science pass of Jupiter marks Juno's halfway point in prime mission data collection.
On Dec. 21, at 8:49:48 a.m. PST
(11:49:48 a.m. EST) NASA's Juno spacecraft will be 3,140 miles (5,053
kilometers) above Jupiter's cloud tops and hurtling by at a healthy clip of
128,802 mph (207,287 kilometers per hour). This will be the 16thscience pass of the gas giant and will mark the solar-powered spacecraft's halfway
point in data collection during its prime mission.Juno is in a highly-elliptical 53-day orbit
around Jupiter. Each orbit includes a close passage over the planet's cloud
deck, where it flies a ground track that extends from Jupiter's north pole to
its south pole."With our
16thscience flyby, we will have complete global coverage of Jupiter,
albeit at coarse resolution, with polar passes separated by 22.5 degrees of
longitude," said Jack Connerney, Juno deputy principal
investigator from the Space Research Corporation in Annapolis, Maryland. "Over
the second half of our prime mission - science flybys 17 through 32 - we will
split the difference, flying exactly halfway between each previous orbit. This
will provide coverage of the planet every 11.25 degrees of longitude, providing
a more detailed picture of what makes the whole of Jupiter tick."Launched
on Aug. 5, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the spacecraft entered orbit
around Jupiter on July 4, 2016. Its science collection began in earnest on the Aug. 27, 2016, flyby. During these flybys, Juno's suite of sensitive science
instruments probes beneath the planet's obscuring cloud cover and studies Jupiter's
auroras to learn more about the planet's origins, interior structure,
atmosphere and magnetosphere."We
have already rewritten the textbooks on howJupiter's atmosphereworks, and on thecomplexity and asymmetry of its magnetic field," said Scott Bolton,
principal investigator of Juno, from the Southwest Research Institute in San
Antonio. "The second half should provide the detail that we can use to refine
our understanding of the depth of Jupiter's zonal winds, the generation of its
magnetic field, and the structure and evolution of its interior."Two instruments aboard
Juno, the Stellar Reference Unit and JunoCam, have proven to be useful not only
for their intended purposes, but also for science data collection. The
Stellar Reference Unit (SRU) was designed to collect engineering data used
for navigation and attitude determination, so the scientists were pleased to
find that it has scientific uses as well."We always knew the SRU
had a vital engineering job to do for Juno," said Heidi Becker, Juno's
radiation monitoring investigation lead at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, California. "But after making scientific discoveries in Jupiter's
radiation belts and taking a first-of-its-kind image of Jupiter's ring, we realized
the added value of the data. There is serious scientific interest in what the
SRU can tell us about Jupiter."The
JunoCam imager was conceived as an outreach instrument to bring the excitement and
beauty of Jupiter exploration to the public."While originally
envisioned solely as an outreach instrument to help tell the Juno story,
JunoCam has become much more than that," said Candy Hansen, Juno co-investigator at the Planetary Science Institute in
Tucson, Arizona. "Our time-lapse sequences of images over the poles allow
us to study the dynamics of Jupiter's unique circumpolar cyclones and to image
high-altitude hazes. We are also using JunoCam to study the structure of the
Great Red Spot and its interaction with its surroundings."The
SRU and JunoCam teams both now have several peer-reviewed science papers -either
published or in the works - to their credit.NASA's JPL manages the
Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest
Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers
Program, which is managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,
Alabama, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Italian Space Agency (ASI)
contributed two instruments, a Ka-band frequency translator (KaT) and the
Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM). Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built
the spacecraft.More information about
Juno is available at:https://www.nasa.gov/junohttps://www.missionjuno.swri.eduMore information on
Jupiter is at:https://www.nasa.gov/jupiterThe public can follow the
mission on Facebook and Twitter at:https://www.facebook.com/NASAJunohttps://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno