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Welcome to Jupiter
Pasadena Independent Jul 06, 2016
Hoge with High Point student Eliana-Courtesy Photo
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A stencil of the Juno spacecraft outside Rose Bowl Stadium. – Photo by Gus Herrera
By Gus Herrera
This past Fourth of July was truly a historic one for our nation and the greater scientific community. The Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit and thanks to the brilliant men and women of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena will forever be linked with this pivotal moment in human history.
As fireworks lit up the night sky and explosion after explosion shook the Rose Bowl, hundreds of millions of miles away, the Juno spacecraft spiraled its way through the mute vacuum of space towards its final destination, Jupiter.
Five years ago, Juno left Earth, in August 2011. In October 2013, the spacecraft came back around, using our planet’s gravity to slingshot itself towards Jupiter, where it finally arrived on Monday, July 4.
Not far from the Americafest celebration, inside Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), world-class scientists and engineers held their collective breaths, as they helplessly awaited signals from both the Juno spacecraft and the Lockheed Martin operations center in Denver.
Due to the astronomical distance, Juno was unable to be “joy-sticked” (manually piloted), so everyone was truly at the whims of calculations/formulas made years ago.
Luckily, signals kept coming in like clockwork and the spacecraft ultimately entered Jupiter’s orbit only one second off from the predicted time.
When Galileo Galilei gazed into the night sky, almost four centuries ago, he observed Jupiter and, more importantly, the motion of its four largest moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Night after night, he tracked the path of these four moons, which today are collectively referred to as the Galilean moons, and soon noticed that their positions gradually changed, relative to Jupiter. This observation would change the landscape of human progress forever.
A commemorative Juno Mission shell launched during the Americafest celebration. – Photo by Gus Herrera
From their motion, Galileo deduced that the moons must be orbiting Jupiter. He then applied this concept to our planet, as he tracked the motion of the stars in the night sky, relative to the sun, and formulated his heliocentric theory of the solar system.
By removing humanity from the center of the known universe, Galileo boldly helped lay the foundation for the scientific revolution of the 17th century, observational astronomy, and, in essence, modern physics and science.
Unfortunately, Galileo did not live in a very open-minded society and he spent the later stages of his life in exile for his theory, which placed the sun, rather than Earth, at the center of the solar system. Hundreds of years later, Galileo’s efforts have finally been justified.
As the Juno spacecraft made its final approach towards Jupiter, all scientific instruments on-board were shut down, in preparation for orbital insertion. Being the first solar-powered space mission in history (previous missions have all been nuclear-powered), it was critical for Juno to preserve as much of its energy as possible.
In the days leading up to this moment, JunoCam, a visible-light camera on-board the spacecraft, finally provided the human race with empirical proof for Galileo’s theories. This evidence came in the form of a time-lapsed video recording of the Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter. The video, which condensed 17 days into a little less than three minutes, marked the first time humanity has ever seen the motion of a heavenly body against another heavenly body.
The footage of Jupiter’s mini solar system, is both a microcosm and macrocosm of nature itself. If it were possible to zoom way out and look at our solar system from the same perspective that Juno saw Jupiter and its moons, you would see the exact same motion, with the planets orbiting the sun. Back out even further and you will see our sun orbiting around another galaxy. Similarly, zoom this same perspective way, way in and you will this same movement as protons and electrons zoom around an atom.
Juno has finally given homo sapiens a glimpse of the natural motion of the universe and it has not even started on its main objective: unlocking Jupiter’s secrets.
In Roman mythology (which is fundamentally rooted in Greek mythology), Juno is the wife/sister of Jupiter, the king of the gods. Although all-powerful, Jupiter was fairly mischievous, as well. In order to hide his foul doings from his wife, he cast a veil of clouds. Juno did not take kindly to this and she used her powers to gaze through the haze and see the true nature of her husband.
The Juno spacecraft, which is large enough to fit in an NBA stadium, is equipped with state-of-the-art technology to do exactly as the Roman goddess did, reveal Jupiter’s secrets, which scientists believe hold the key to the formation of our solar system. Among the many questions which the mission hopes to answer are two of particular importance: how much water is in Jupiter and does the planet have a solid core?
Having successfully slowed itself down into Jupiter’s orbit via a 35-minute main engine thrust, Juno will now embark on several huge, 53-day elliptical orbits, which are intended to get the spacecraft as close to the planet as possible (within 3,100 miles of Jupiter’s cloud tops), all while avoiding Jupiter’s deadly radiation.
Juno’s three passengers: Galileo, Juno, and Jupiter. – Photo by Gus Herrera
In addition to the scientific instruments, there are three passengers on-board Juno. In a special collaboration with Lego, three spacecraft-grade aluminum figurines were brought along for the ride: Juno, holding a magnifying glass; Jupiter, wielding a lightning bolt; and Galileo, holding the king of the planets (with its famous red spot) in one hand and a telescope in the other.
After successfully entering orbit there was still work to be done. Approximately 30 minutes after Jupiter orbital insertion, Juno had to maneuver itself to face the sun, in order to keep the juices flowing for the remainder of the mission. Juno’s performance will be critical in guiding the development of future solar-powered missions.
The spacecraft will orbit Jupiter 37 times, lasting 20 months, before finally plunging into Jupiter’s atmosphere in February 2018.
For more details, click here.
To watch JunoCam’s approach video, click here.
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