APOD: Passing Jupiter (2018 Feb 26)

[APOD Robot]

Passing Jupiter

Explanation: Here comes Jupiter! NASA's robotic spacecraft Juno is continuing on its 53-day, highly-elongated orbits around our Solar System's largest planet. The featured video is from perijove 11, the eleventh time Juno has passed near Jupiter since it arrived in mid-2016. This time-lapse, color-enhanced movie covers about four hours and morphs between 36 JunoCam images. The video begins with Jupiter rising as Juno approaches from the north. As Juno reaches its closest view -- from about 3,500 kilometers over Jupiter's cloud tops -- the spacecraft captures the great planet in tremendous detail. Juno passes light zones and dark belt of clouds that circle the planet, as well as numerous swirling circular storms, many of which are larger than hurricanes on Earth. After the perijove, Jupiter recedes into the distance, now displaying the unusual clouds that appear over Jupiter's south. To get desired science data, Juno swoops so close to Jupiter that its instruments may soon fail due to exposure to high levels of radiation. Because of this, in part, the Juno mission is currently scheduled to conclude in mid-2018, at perijove 14, when the spacecraft will be directed to dive into Jupiter's atmosphere and melt.

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[Boomer12k]

WOW.... Paisley with a Julia Mandelbrot Set....2001: Space Odyssey...Awesome


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[Guthers]

Interesting choice of music. I love the Moonlight sonata, but even if Holst is too obvious, how about Mozart's 41st symphony, a.k.a. the Jupiter?

Amazing pictures. Jupiter's clouds would be constant entertainment for any beings living in its system.

[HellCat]

Another incredible post, as always.

One smidgen of concern, in the last sentence, did you mean "... currently scheduled ... " ?

Given the high profile of this site, maybe getting the English department involved might not be a bad idea.

[Rules For]

Is it really scheduled to go into Jupiter this summer? I thought it was intended to go until late 2019 now since it never made it into its shorter 2-week orbit.

[Cousin Ricky]

One smidgen of concern, in the last sentence, did you mean "... currently scheduled ... " ?

Given the high profile of this site, maybe getting the English department involved might not be a bad idea.

I suspect this is more of a proofreading concern than a grammar concern.

[ERGI]

Is it really scheduled to go into Jupiter this summer? I thought it was intended to go until late 2019 now since it never made it into its shorter 2-week orbit.

Right... Why not let it fail and realize the experiment of its radiation tolerance... then apply that data
/info to future missions? I mean, where's it going to go? Jupiter has the gravity mass so it will likely ditch there anyway.

[Catalina]

Is there data coming in at this point that further tells of what makes up the bands of Jupiter or what lies beneath the swirling clouds? I truly appreciate the exquisite images, but would also be very interested in what is being collected to help us understand the giant by these close fly-by passes.

[neufer]

Is it really scheduled to go into Jupiter this summer?
I thought it was intended to go until late 2019 now since it never made it into its shorter 2-week orbit.

One would think that it would last well beyond it's original expiration date but the resources are only budgeted up to this summer.

Right... Why not let it fail and realize the experiment of its radiation tolerance... then apply that data
/info to future missions? I mean, where's it going to go? Jupiter has the gravity mass so it will likely ditch there anyway.

Or drop it's perijove down low enough that atmospheric drag will limit it's orbital lifetime for a decade or so.

[Chris Peterson]

Is it really scheduled to go into Jupiter this summer? I thought it was intended to go until late 2019 now since it never made it into its shorter 2-week orbit.

As it nears the end of its planned mission this year, there will be an opportunity to request funding for an extended mission if the science justifies it and the spacecraft appears to still be in good working order.

[Chris Peterson]

Right... Why not let it fail and realize the experiment of its radiation tolerance... then apply that data
/info to future missions? I mean, where's it going to go? Jupiter has the gravity mass so it will likely ditch there anyway.

Nobody wants it to die in its current orbit, because there is the possibility of it eventually hitting a moon. It is possible that it could be placed into a low eccentricity orbit which would naturally decay into Jupiter in a few years or decades and be inside any moon orbits, but that might also involve firing the engine that is problematic. It is a high priority to ensure that the probe can't hit anything but Jupiter.

[heehaw]

Dump it now, and use the money to save WFIRST: https://kopitiambot.com/2018/02/21/canc ... ruin-nasa/

[neufer]

Dump it now, and use the money to save WFIRST: https://kopitiambot.com/2018/02/21/canc ... ruin-nasa/

Continuing a current successful mission is far cheaper than starting a new one.

[RJN]

After some communication from someone directly involved with Juno, the APOD text on the NASA site has now been changed. Unofficially, the timing of Juno's demise is somewhat unclear but now seems unlikely to occur during summer 2018. For more information, please contact the Juno team directly. We apologize for the confusion.

- RJN