The spacecraft conducted 56 flybys of Jupiter and recorded close encounters with three of the gas giant’s four largest moons.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft will perform the closest flyby of Jupiter’s moon Io on Tuesday, Dec. 30, the closest spacecraft ever to do so. 20 years. Passing through the pass, which is within about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of the surface of the solar system’s most volcanic world, is expected to allow Juno’s instruments to generate large amounts of data.
“By combining data from this flyby with previous observations, the Juno science team is studying how Io’s volcanoes change,” said Juno principal investigator and South African scientist in San Antonio, Texas. said Scott Bolton of the West Research Institute. “We need to know how often lava erupts, how bright and hot it is, how the shape of lava flows changes, and how Io’s activity interacts with the flow of charged particles in Jupiter’s magnetosphere. We are investigating whether they are related.”
Io’s second very close flight is scheduled for February 3, 2024, when Juno will once again come within about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) of Earth’s surface.
The spacecraft monitored Io’s volcanic activity from distances ranging from about 6,830 miles (11,000 kilometers) to more than 62,100 miles (100,000 kilometers) and provided the first views of the moon’s north and south poles. The spacecraft also flew close to Jupiter’s icy moons Ganymede and Europa.
“Two flybys in December and February revealed that Juno was able to determine the source of Io’s massive volcanic activity, whether there is an ocean of magma beneath the crust, and the pressure on the beleaguered moon that is relentlessly squeezing the beleaguered moon. “We plan to investigate the importance of tidal forces from Jupiter,” Bolton said.
Now in its third year, expanded mission To investigate Jupiter’s origins, the solar energy probe will also explore the ring system, which is home to some of the gas giant’s inner moons.
Please imagine this
All three cameras on Juno will be active during Io flight. Jupiter’s Infrared Auroral Mapper (Gillam) will take images in infrared light and collect signatures of heat emitted by the volcanoes and calderas that cover the moon’s surface. The mission’s stellar reference unit (a navigational star camera that also provided valuable science) will capture the highest-resolution surface images ever. The JunoCam imager also captures visible light color images.
JunoCam was on board the spacecraft for public viewing and was designed to operate on up to eight flybys of Jupiter. Io’s next flyby will be Juno’s 57th orbit around Jupiter, and the spacecraft and camera have endured one of the solar system’s harshest radiation environments.
“The cumulative effects of all the radiation are starting to show up on JunoCam over the past few orbits,” said Ed Hurst, Juno’s project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “In the last flyby photo, you can see that the imager’s dynamic range has decreased and a ‘striped’ noise is introduced. Our engineering team is working on solutions to reduce radiation damage and keep your imagers operational. ”
More io please
After months of research and evaluation, the Juno team adjusted the spacecraft’s planned future trajectory and added seven new long-range Io flights (18 total) to the expanded mission plan. After approaching Io on February 3, the spacecraft will fly by Io every other orbit, gradually moving away from it with each orbit. The first orbit will be at an altitude of about 10,250 miles (16,500 kilometers) above Io, and the final orbit will be above Io. Located approximately 71,450 miles (115,000 kilometers).
Io’s gravity on Juno during the Dec. 30 flyby will shorten the spacecraft’s orbit around Jupiter from 38 to 35 days. Juno’s orbit will decline 33 days after its February 3 flyby.
Juno’s new orbit will then cause Jupiter to block the sun from the spacecraft for about five minutes when the spacecraft is closest to the planet, a period called near-Jupiter. It will be the first time the solar-powered spacecraft has encountered darkness since its close encounter with Earth in October 2013, but the period will be too short to affect overall operations. With the exception of Chikagi on February 3, the spacecraft will encounter such eclipses every time it approaches Jupiter for the remainder of its extended mission, which ends by the end of 2025.
Starting in April 2024, the spacecraft will perform a series of occultation experiments using Juno’s satellites. gravity science experiment It will investigate the composition of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere and provide important information about Jupiter’s shape and internal structure.
Mission details
JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, is managing the Juno mission for principal investigator Scott J. 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 the NASA Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver builds and operates the spacecraft.
For more information about Juno, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/juno
News media contacts
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov
Deb Schmidt
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio
210-522-2254
dschmid@swri.org
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